Wealth & Money Quote by Susan George

Status is a habit that gets more expensive the longer you feed it. Susan George’s line lands because it refuses the comforting myth that inequality is a technical glitch we can patch with better charts. It’s about incentive, not ignorance: once wealth becomes a lifestyle and a ladder, the people at the top don’t just have more to lose, they have more reason to call “normal” whatever protects their position.

The key move is the word “clearly.” George isn’t arguing; she’s diagnosing. It frames “downgrade” as both economic and psychological. Riches aren’t only assets but identity: neighborhoods, schools, health access, political influence, even the right to be insulated from other people’s crises. Consumption becomes a public signal, and status anxiety becomes a governance problem. If your advantages are legible - seen, envied, defended - then redistribution doesn’t feel like policy. It feels like humiliation.

Contextually, George writes from an activist tradition skeptical of trickle-down promises and moral appeals to elites. The subtext is structural: expecting the wealthy to voluntarily surrender status ignores how systems convert private preference into public outcomes. Tax policy, deregulation, philanthropy-as-branding, and “merit” narratives all become tools to prevent downgrading while keeping the story of fairness intact.

It works because it punctures the gentler language of “shared sacrifice.” George is reminding you that inequality persists not just because the rich can consume more, but because they can purchase permanence - and then rationalize it as deserved.