The History of the Phrase The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Poorer

I hereby declare that I'm not running this exponentially contrived phrase into the ground any farther than it already has been. During an argument about the economic divide in the world, saying this statement will probably make the person you're arguing with roll his or her eyes from here to China (where it probably also gets an eye roll from there to here) and perhaps just turning and walking away knowing you're one of the most contrived debaters that person has ever met. Yeah, well, stop that person before he or she disappears into the sunset, because you can convince them of the phrase's utter truth by its rich history that's much more compelling than just being a line from an old Tin Pan Alley song. And, as my quest usually goes, I'm going to debunk the notion that the phrase is verbatim from that much-covered 1920's song called "Ain't We Got Fun."

While our Founding Fathers undoubtedly understood the economic divide from Europe, they felt that the privileged few who ran the new country were entitled to monetary awards considering their intelligence and hard work put into making America what it is. The poor in early America didn't initially like the idea, yet went along with the concept for the most part without heading to D.C. and lighting all the buildings on fire. We should be reminded, though, that the economic divides were just as wide in those days as they are now--perhaps even worse. None of the Founding Fathers made a peep about those realities, though...or at least no attributable quotes.

It wasn't until the Presidency of Andrew Jackson when you could find a quote through an American President acknowledging that there was a serious disparity and growing disillusionment between the poor and the U.S. government. When Jackson sent an extended message as a veto to Congress on bringing down the corrupt Bank of the United States in 1832, he derided the rich who were controlling the purse strings and squeezing the little guy. In his veto message, Jackson managed to be the first to phrase at least the first half of our star phrase--mainly by stating that the rich were getting richer and the potent were getting more powerful.

Afterward, he stated that the powerless in America had a right to complain when the inequalities become patently unfair.

Well, about eight years later, President William Henry Harrison admitted in a speech that a Democratic government's purpose is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. This was the first time the phrase of the poor getting poorer was used by a President--and perhaps Harrison taking the realities of Marxian theory on capitalism to the people to remind them that if we choose democracy, the mechanisms are in place to automatically favor the wealthy.

Marx's own philosophical laws on capitalism that you hopefully have read in Economics 101 stated that the small capitalist always gets gobbled up by the bigger capitalists who manage to usurp the middle class in getting ahead financially--thus creating the process of two classes eventually. Yes, that insinuated already then that, in reality, the middle class would someday die out and become the poor in time through a capitalist society. While some economists contest this notion today through a complicated and theoretical economic filter, it's obvious the current tax system has much to do with it.

Because the rich have received exponential tax benefits in the 2000's (otherwise known as corporate welfare), the economic divide is quite obvious. If or when that's reversed, economic theory might say that the poor have a chance to get ahead at least a little--while the rich still stay rich, though technically don't get exponentially richer as they are at the time of this writing.

Going from Marx to Tin Pan Alley might seem jarring then in the context of reminding the populace of our wild economic divides. However, in 1921, a song written by Tin Pan Alley tunesmith Richard Whiting (daughter Margaret later became a famous pop singer) and lyricists Gus Kahn and Raymond Egan managed to sum up not only the 1920's, but arguably the entire philosophy of America up to present day...

Debunking the myths of "Ain't We Got Fun" and its lyrics...

Most people probably have no clue that American Presidents put our star phrase into the minds of Americans already in the mid 1800's. But nobody really heard it uttered again until the swinging 1920's started when the rich were getting wildly rich and the poor were eight years away from getting much poorer. For decades, too, the phrase "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" became attributable to the song "Ain't We Got Fun", despite the original lyrics utilizing the phrase being quite different and actually wittier.

In truth, the original lines used in the song were "the rich get rich and the poor get children" for the first chorus and then "the rich get rich and the poor get laid off" in the repeat chorus. Perhaps the way we hear it today was started when some artists in later decades recorded the song and decided to change it, maybe because the phrase had already been placed firmly into pop culture. I've heard Peggy Lee's 1960's version of the recording (yeah, Tin Pan Alley covers still did well on occasion during the Beatles era) and she changes the last line to "the rich get rich and the poor get poorer", which is almost as close to the way we say it now.

The original words are funnier, if even darker based on the insinuation that the poor were benighted to birth control and had children as prolifically as rabbits. Keep in mind this song was a bit prescient, too, saying in the repeat chorus the poor get laid off when nobody would have imagined a Great Depression in America during 1921.

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Can we attribute a song written in 1921 then to how we use a certain phrase that, in all its contrived way of stating a situation, gives a profound and all-encompassing picture of America from its past to future? When even politicians are still using it now without worrying that someone may cry out for someone to state our economic divides in a more creative way, then it's safe to say "Ain't We Got Fun" may have to be designated a patriotic song eventually.

Read all of the lyrics here: http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/a/aintwegotfun.shtml and see for yourself if this isn't a song that represents America in every era including our own. Considering how many legendary artists sang it during the 20^th century, it gives the song a lot of clout.

If our star phrase continues to get you down of late, then just extract a line from the song and remind yourself: "Times are bum and getting bummer; still we have fun..."