A few weeks ago, I attended a most wonderful party, with music, pretty girls, lots of champagne—and even some people who did not move their lips while reading the labels of the expensive bubbly and Scotch whiskey they were imbibing.  Namely, Tom Wolfe, Lewis Lapham, Graydon Carter, Edward Jay Epstein, and other such New York swells.  The occasion was Lapham’s Quarterly “About Money,” a 220-page-thick issue featuring mostly dead writers such as Aristophanes, Karl Marx, Ben Franklin, Andrew Carnegie, Edith Wharton, Cicero, even Henry Ford.  (“What a treat it must be,” said Graydon Carter, one of the speakers, “to be able to publish great writers without having to deal with them.”)  Other speakers were the very much alive Tom Wolfe, whose contribution was included in the volume, the producer Harvey Weinstein, and actor Richard Dreyfuss, who read out a passage by Ayn Rand.  All in all, a very pleasant evening which left me more confused about my feelings toward money than, say, Oscar Wilde, who wrote that “when I was young, I thought money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know that it is.”

Well, here I disagree with the great Oscar.  I recently wrote in the British Quarterly Review how most of the very rich I have known, and I’ve known plenty, were not only miserable human beings but also ghastly toward their fellow humans.  Which means I’m on Mark Twain’s side, who insisted he was opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer him the position.  Poor Twain.  Millionaires are now literally a dime a dozen, so from now on we shall speak only of billionaires, a field which is also getting rather crowded of late.  “No man can ask another man’s brain to do his thinking, any more than he can ask another man’s lungs to do his breathing,” spluttered la Rand.  Yes, but if a man has an oversized brain and lungs, surely he can offer to help with ideas or even the kiss of life.  “One man’s need is not another man’s obligation,” Ayn banged on.  “There are just three ways of getting money: earn it, steal it, or beg for it.”

Actually, I had to do none of the three.  I made my money the old fashioned way: I inherited it.  That might sound unfair, but there you have it.  It is in our genes to want to leave things for our children, and nothing that busybodies can do will ever change this.  Andrew Carnegie thought it a great mistake to shoot “billionaires,” for they were the bees that made the most honey and contribute the most to the hive even after they have gorged themselves.  And speaking of gorging, I recently wrote in the London Spectator about two men, Steve Swarzman and Henry Kravis, both of whom made an indecent amount of moolah while gorging themselves without making any honey.  Swarzman and Kravis are vultures who feast on public companies created by others.  Both terrible twins are money shufflers—nothing more, nothing less—and employ only secretaries, accountants, and tax experts.  Not to be confused with Carnegie, Mellon, or Ford, needless to say.  (When I went to Swarzman’s house, I noticed not a single book anywhere, but then I read that he pledged $100 million to the New York Library if the latter named a wing after him.)

Which brings me to Lakshmi Mittal, an Indian but not our kind, an India Indian and Britain’s richest man.  Mittal has 40 billion greenbacks and is a steel magnate—steel not steal, although some mauvaise langues insist it’s the latter.  Although Balzac declared that behind every great fortune lay a great crime, we shall give Mittal a pass. Among his possessions are the Abaiskaya mines in Kazakhstan.  Since he took over the mines in 2004, 121 lives have been lost, and hundreds have been burned and crippled among his workers.  Poor safety and outdated equipment are the problems.  Abai is a desolate, poverty-stricken place.  Miners live in rows of half-abandoned, Soviet-era blocks of flats.  Mittal’s employees claim that part of their salary is regularly withheld by managers who say they have failed to reach targets.  Uncle Joe Stalin lives, but it’s Mittal—who spent ten million big ones for his rather homely daughter’s wedding—who cashes in.  The Indian tycoon has managed to raise production by 30 percent since he took over, but he has neglected safety while still using old-fashioned methods like shovels to carry the 260-pound steel pit props used to shore up the mine shafts.  (Where is Charles Dickens now that we really need him?)

Is this capitalism, or is it slavery?  How can Mittal sleep at night when his mines are killing off workers quicker than you can say “profit margins”?  I’ll tell you.  He sleeps soundly, and he has the biggest house in London to sleep soundly in.  But is Mittal worse than those so-called heroes of ours in the West who sent millions off to war to become cannon fodder?  I don’t think so.  As I write, I read in the Times that last year some hedge-fund managers made billions—in fact, they have redefined notions of wealth, and are redefining those notions every day.  That includes our old friend George Soros, he of the liberal persuasion and great conscience.  I suppose most of these people are self-made, with their insecurities still intact despite their billions.  Makes one proud of having inherited the stuff: At least it comes without greed attached.