Jay Drezner refutes the New York Times!

Last Sunday’s New York Times ran an Ellyn Spragins column on how wealth inequities affect sibling relationships. Her conclusion — it ain’t good: Because you come from the same gene pool and are raised in the same way, it’s much tougher to find a convincing, palatable excuse for why your brother owns his own company, ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the author of The Ideas Industry.

Last Sunday's New York Times ran an Ellyn Spragins column on how wealth inequities affect sibling relationships. Her conclusion -- it ain't good:

Last Sunday’s New York Times ran an Ellyn Spragins column on how wealth inequities affect sibling relationships. Her conclusion — it ain’t good:

Because you come from the same gene pool and are raised in the same way, it’s much tougher to find a convincing, palatable excuse for why your brother owns his own company, a vacation house and four fancy sports cars – and you don’t. Is it because he’s blond? Taller? Or is he smarter and better? “Siblings are about as similar to you as you can get,” said Margaret Clark, a psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “So when you compare, and you come out behind, it can be painful.”… Usually it’s a less wealthy sibling who chooses to distance himself or herself from a rich sister or brother – or to drop the relationship altogether. “If you seal off that relationship you don’t have to think about the comparison and what it means to your self-esteem,” Dr. Tesser said. One way to do that is to slur a rich sibling in a way that lends you superiority: “The money really changed him,” for example, or “She sacrificed her family life to be successful.”

In my family, this last point is amusing, given that Jay Drezner — my brother — makes far more money than I do, but was also the one who decided to go live in Australia for a few years. Jay read the story and has a lot of things to say about it. Here’s the punchline:

[A]sk yourself the following question. Do you think my brother is jealous of me for the money that I make or am I jealous of my brother for the lifestyle he leads? I suspect (being only one of the parties involved) that the answer to both would be a hesitant “No.” In the career path that he has chosen my brother has been a success. If posed with the option to reverse history and choose my life instead, I believe he would reject it. Similarly, I would not choose the path than Dan has taken. I believe that the reason for this is, while I’m sure I would like more free time and Dan wouldn’t refuse a higher salary, we both made our career and life choices aware of what those choices meant. Eventually, my priorities may change, but given what most people think of my profession, I feel it is appropriate to quote John Milton (Al Pacino’s character from The Devil’s Advocate), “Free will, it is a bitch.”

All I can say is, indeed. [Does this mean you get Connie Neilsen?–ed. Oh, shut up.]

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the author of The Ideas Industry. Twitter: @dandrezner

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