Weekly Short Story: A Full Member of the Club by Bob Shaw

The very rich and the curious tendency of many of them to be actively engaged in accumulating private art collections is the background for A Full Member of the Club, a 1974 science fiction short story by Bob Shaw appearing in the anthology The 1975 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim (DAW Books).  Protagonist Philip Connors, wealthy in his own right by most people's standards through his driven entrepreneurial work and wheeling and dealing, finds himself suddenly scorned and spurned by Angela, his love interest, after she becomes extremely rich due to an inheritance. Determined to win her back, he breaks into her new estate and notices the extraordinarily high quality of everything he finds there...cigarette lighters, cigars, television, everything...and they only have the letter "P" on them.  As it turns out, being able to afford this brand of "perfect" products places these people in a special club, and they...like Angela...have learned to reject the company of others on the outside...like Philip.  Well, our hero isn't used to taking "no" for an answer and he searches to find the source of these amazing goods.  Does he find whoever is making and distributing them?  I'll leave that to you, the potential reader of this intriguing tale, to discover for yourself.  I will only say this: the ending of the story reveals a great deal about our sorry human nature...and, yes, collecting art figures into it all in a funny sort of way...

When I went to high school we had the super-rich kids, most of whom were pretty cool and a few of whom were my friends.  But a small number of them ridiculed the less affluent of us, taking pains to point out where they lived and where we lived, as well as comparing things like wristwatches, clothes, shoes, etc. Note that none of these little snobs had ever done anything to earn their sense of superiority...nevertheless they had it imprinted on themselves that they were in a completely different "club" from others.  I once had a college roommate who expressed the same nose-upturned sense of entitlement because he came from a wealthy family down in Miami.  Which brings me to the concept of entitlement...

I find it ironic that "entitlement" is usually used in the media when referring to programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that benefit lower-to-middle class citizens.  But among the super-wealthy, how many of those who feel entitled to that wealth actually worked to accumulate it and how many are just benefiting due to family connections?  I'm not envious of them, but it kind of grinds me how some folks will draw social distinctions between themselves and others when they themselves have done little to nothing to justify their good fortune...