The myth of old money liberalism: The politics of the Forbes 400 richest Americans

According to the conventional view, old money is more liberal than new mone y. Although widely shared, this thesis of old money liberalism has never be en demonstrated empirically. In this paper, I discuss the origins and elabo ration of this thesis within the social science literature. I then present evidence to refute the thesis from a study of the policies of the Forbes 40 0 richest Americans and several similar samples of wealthy persons drawn fr om earlier decades. The result of this study show that old money is, if any thing, more uniformly conservative than new money. The paper also reviews t he explanations commonly given for the reputed liberalism of old money and argues that the acceptance of the thesis is based less on the persuasivenes s of these arguments than upon longstanding beliefs about old and new wealt h that are invoked by the theory. In conclusion, I sketch on alternative th eory beliefs about old and new wealth that are invoked by the theory. In th e conclusion, I sketch an alternative theory of the political differences b etween old and new money that is more consistent with the empirical evidenc e.