I found that nature provides a special dispensation for purchases and practices that may otherwise be viewed as morally suspect, opulent, or greedy. Nature is priceless, but priceless experiences can be quite expensive. In communing with nature we experience something much deeper, honest, and True than our everyday experiences in society that are seen as inauthentic, morally hazardous, or just the product of selfish economic exchange. Thus, for the rich, the amount of money spent is a secondary concern—both practically and morally—not just because they have plenty to spend, but because the purity of this realm that we call “nature” offers invaluable joy, goodness, and groundedness to protect against the crass materialism rampant in a world of social corruption and elite competition. The many flawed human elements guiding our lives and society melt away in the face of the cosmic, the mountainous, the spiritual, the ecological.

The unsophisticated invocation of “science” and “balance” is also influenced by a certain economic naturalism, by which I mean an unquestioned commitment to fixed economic laws of private property rights and laissez-faire economics. One respondent, a leader of a local nonprofit who works closely with ultra-wealthy people, burst out in laughter when I asked him about recent moral critiques made by some working-class people that it is wrong for such a small selection of ultra-wealthy to own so much of the private land here. After laughing, he continued, “I’m chuckling because that to me is just utter nonsense and socialist drivel. I mean these people have paid for it.… I mean it wasn’t as though the wealthy have kicked out the lowly construction workers and those sixth-generation residents.… I mean, come on. That to me is just absurd.”

First, there is a strong sense that they have scratched and clawed their way to the top, but that once they’ve arrived, there is a risk of losing the honor and dogged authenticity that motivated them on that journey to begin with. Indeed, there is honor associated with the success, but the deeper and more authentic honor—especially given American reverence for self-determination and myths about rags-to-riches—is in the early stages of the struggle itself, where individual will seems the only fuel for survival.

But what happens to your self-identity after this noble struggle is complete, and you’ve made it? Success can squash authenticity. They are no longer the scrappy underdog, but the privileged aristocrat. They now play a different, and seemingly less honorable, role in the American story. The question then becomes, how, if at all, do you reclaim that sense of scrappy authenticity, both for your own self-identity, and for how you are perceived by the rest of society?

“There’s definitely resentment, when they see someone building a $15 million house. But in some ways the people are making a choice, ‘I want to be a ski-bum and work for the ski area [chuckles],’ you know,” explained one ultra-wealthy respondent. Other interviewees spoke in similar terms. An investment banker from New York City told me that the working-class people are “probably jealous as hell that someone’s worked harder than they have and gotten ahead.” This is all very straightforward and simple. “I could see how somebody who is a ski-bum, or somebody who has maybe not spent as much time trying to figure out how to make a lot of money, could have some resentment or could have the perception that all these rich people are, it’s easy money and they didn’t work for it, etc., etc. How that might generate resentment,” says another interviewee.

“Thank God for rich people,” said one ultra-wealthy respondent, in his attempt to sum up the reason for why he doesn’t feel guilty. He was alluding to the way wealth percolates down from rarefied heights to the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. One respondent—a CEO from the Midwest—made this same point crassly, explaining that the presence of extreme wealth disparity is “just the way life is. It’s reality.” But despite this harsh reality, he offers hope. “My answer to everything is jobs. We are giving you jobs, and you simply wouldn’t be here without us … we understand and believe that the noblest thing a person can do is to give people jobs … so while [the wealthy] may not really need a massage or spa things, or their lawn manicured, they do it because they know it provides work for people.”

Others spoke in similar terms, underscoring exactly why they will not be shamed into feeling bad for working hard. It’s a matter of personal choice, according to a real estate developer who moved to this community from San Francisco. “There are people that choose to goof off” when they could have spent their young adulthood “productively steepening their own income curve.” And it’s not like he didn’t want to goof off like some of the rural Western working class do. “I mean believe me, every night that I was ordering Chinese food to [large bank name redacted] at ten o’clock at night, I would have much rather have been in Jackson at the Cowboy Bar with ski-bums having beers. But I didn’t do that and so you know those guys who are sort of bitter and struggling in Jackson, there’s a slice of them where I sort of say, ‘well you chose to spend your twenties [laughs] skiing and living on your buddy’s couch, and so you sort of get what you deserve.’ ”

One gentleman we interviewed, who came to Teton County about twelve years ago with his wife and two children, put it this way: “People with money have it because of their work, or their ancestors have worked hard for what they had, and I know people that are in this position are humble and kind.” In his view, “I think rich people deserve the money they had because they have done things right. Gotten organized, they had an economic plan, and their money is more and more.”

But María isn’t averse to wealthy people, or even wealth itself. “I think [wealth] is great if you are wealthy,” she stresses, in good faith. But at the same time, “the people who are super wealthy, I would love it if they would share more and really help those who don’t have.” Undergirding her view is a moral and religious idea that we all deserve to have enough to live with dignity. Wealth doesn’t belong to individuals; it belongs to humanity itself. “Wealthy people do not deserve the money they have because the wealth of the world is for everyone, and we all deserve it.”

For example, one housecleaner we interviewed tells of “an experience with a lady that I work for many years ago. She saw me cleaning large windows with paper, and next time I went to her house, she had rags for me, and asked me if I could switch from paper to rags. She explained to me that we had to think about the trees, and she is one of those people that really loves nature. She has a huge lawn. So she made me think, and now I try to recycle.” This story is similarly summed up in the words of another person, who told us that, “The rich people tell us to recycle to help the environment.”

Another told us of his personal experiences working for one of the wealthiest people in the community, who was “a nice enough guy.… I think his place is valued at like $35,000,000 … [they] fly in on his jet and stay there for two weeks.” It wasn’t the amount of money that was the issue for this working-class respondent, but the fact that this ultra-wealthy oil baron was intent on saving the environment by making his employees print on double-sided paper. “He made all of his money running oil … or initially made his first batch of money running oil past the South African oil embargo in the ’80s … [yet] he’d come back down to the office sometimes and he would say, ‘Here let’s use this again. Turn this page over, use the back side; we’re going to recycle all of our paper.’ ” The hypocrisy was almost too much for him to take, he says, continuing, “I’m like, ‘You just flew in here in a Gulf Stream. Why do you care?’ [Recycling] just doesn’t matter, you know, you’re keeping this 15,000-square-foot mansion heated year round, and empty, and you’re worried about that? But you know, I guess it made him feel better.”