Back in 1951 MGM released Royal Wedding, one of the movie musicals for which the studio was noted. Famous for the scene that has Fred Astaire dancing on the walls and ceiling (done by having a rotating set and a fixed camera . . . with the cameraman strapped into his seat), the film — which is now in the public domain — was a riff on the marriage of then-Princess Elizabeth and Phillip Mountbatten in 1947.
Nothing against Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, but the real royal wedding was the event responsible for ruining nuptials unhappily ever after throughout the world. It did this by building expectations up so high they could never be met and creating the “Bridezilla” phenomenon.
Weddings, essentially ephemeral, one-time events, became in some instances more important than the marriages they ostensibly celebrated. If a couple couldn’t have a wedding casting in the shade that of the Crown Princess of Great Britain (or at least mimicking it in as many particulars as possible), well, it was all over. That’s it. Life is ended, ruined for all eternity, worse even than having an engagement ring costing less than half a year’s pay, picking an inappropriate silver pattern, registering at the wrong stores for gifts, or having bridesmaids’ dresses that don’t make the crew look dowdy, over-, or underdressed next to the bride.
Enter the Bezos Venice wedding extravaganza. Distracting people from such trivial events as the war against Ukraine, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” Iran, Israel, colossal government debt, AI, etc., etc., etc., “A List celebrities” are split on the issue, signaling their virtue or lack thereof with paroxysms of wrath or sneering indifference, respectively.
On the plus side, the vulgar, even ludicrous ostentation of the Bezos affair might help put the brakes on efforts by ordinary people and psychotic bridezillas to one-up Princess Elizabeth. After all, the money expended on some weddings would go a long way toward making a down payment on a house or repaying student loan debt. These would be cash outlays that might enhance marital stability instead of adding to the stress of trying to make it work in a society increasingly hostile to marital bliss. Otherwise, if you don’t have it, don’t spend it.
On the other hand, extravagant weddings by people who have money to burn are, believe it or not, a benefit to society, and not just for the entertainment value or the opportunity to make fun of celebrities. We didn’t Google it, but we have a sneaking hunch if we did, we’d find more than a few results for “wedding industry” or some similar search terms.
Weddings are Big Business in the sense of being an important factor in an economy, and still one that hasn’t been mostly taken over by the mega corporations. A great many people make their livings as wedding planners, consultants, bakers, seamstresses, caterers, what have you. It would possibly not be illegal or fattening, but it would certainly be immoral to weaken or even destroy an entire industry out of spite or envy.
Yes, it might have been more politically correct to have a small wedding or at least a less costly one and distribute the difference to charity. There are, however, a few problems with that. People with any self-respect prefer to earn their money through their labor or capital ownership in justice rather than have it handed to them to charity, especially grudging, politically motivated charity.
Yes, charity should be accepted as well as offered graciously and in a non-demeaning or insulting way. Unfortunately, too many people with money and power like to rub it in people’s faces when they give money away, or at the very least give away the money in a way that keeps them in control and others dependent on them. They can’t help it; they have become addicted to power over others rather than power over themselves. That’s why charity — love — is the greatest virtue but love of money is the root of all evil.
Another problem with just giving money away is it doesn’t address the real problem, which is lack of opportunity and means to be productive on the part of increasing numbers of people. As the adage has it, give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat every day. At least so long as he isn’t allergic to fish, doesn’t live in the Sahara Desert, and the law doesn’t prohibit him from fishing — access to the opportunity and means includes any necessary systemic and legal changes required to allow people to do what they need to do to be productive.
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| Maimonides |
That is why, for example, Moses Maimonides in the Mishna Torah gave as the lowest form of charity simple almsgiving (what most people think of as charity), but the eighth and highest form of charity is giving someone a loan so he can go into business and become charitable himself. Thus, while the Bezos Bridal Bash was crude, pretentious, and more than a little tasteless, it served a useful purpose by expending money instead of reinvesting it to create more wealth that would be reinvested instead of spent.
Bezos probably created more jobs or made existing jobs viable by spending what he did on his wedding than reinvesting ten times the amount. Every cent spent on the wedding went to the direct benefit of some business or individual. The same amount spent on “job creation” by reinvesting the money would have resulted in a small percentage going to the benefit of the workers, and the vast bulk remaining in Bezos’s hands through ownership of the capital that created the need for human labor and enjoyment of the profits realized.
So, although our aesthetic sensibilities are offended by Bezos’s conspicuous consumption, the benefits to society far outweigh the enjoyment we get from disparaging people who happen to have more money than we do and use it in ways of which we don’t particularly approve:
· It may encourage people who cannot really afford it to cut back on costly weddings and put the money to something more useful, such as the marriage itself.
· People who can afford it might be inspired to do it a little more tastefully.
· The rich might be motivated to spend more and reinvest less.
· The non-rich might be moved to develop new ways to profit from the spending of the rich.
Best of all, people might realize that if they want to be able to spend money on what they want, they need to own capital themselves instead of relying on others to employ them at a wage or waiting around for private charity or government welfare. They might start demanding something like the Economic Democracy Act.
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