They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, And how one ought never to think of one's self, And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking.
My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! How pleasant it is to have money.
—Arthur Hugh Clough, 1850
Most people dream that they will some day, somehow, strike it rich. They share a pleasurable and innocuous fantasy, akin to pubertal pinings or the hankering of grown men—and women—to sail around the world, learn the Hustle or inhabit the White House. The reality of American life in 1977 might appear to make daydreams of wealth more chimerical than ever in the nation's history. Indeed, in an age of brutal taxation, constricted opportunity and entangling laws, most dreamers of wealth concede that Mars or Margaux might be more attainable than megabucks.
Nonetheless, this remains the Age of the Possible. The wealthy are not an endangered species. It is hard to believe, but true, that more Americans today are making fortunes than ever before. Sharing the riches, 1,149 taxpayers had annual incomes of $1 million or more in 1975—nearly twice as many as in 1970. The number of individuals in the U.S. with a net worth of $ 1 million or more has soared almost fourfold in the past 15 years: from 54,000 in 1962 to nearly 200,000 today—although these figures are somewhat deceptive, since anyone who was worth $1 million in 1962 would need $1.92 million to be as well off today. As Economist Robert Heilbroner wrote in The Quest for Wealth, " 'Rich! I am rich!' is an exultant cry we shall hear down the ages."
The exultant ones in the U.S. today are those who through talent, luck, prescience and drive have amassed fortunes in the past few years, or are about to. They are an uncommonly interesting lot, whose lives and habits illuminate what achievement means today in the society that invented the success ethic. Regardless of the route, those who are making it to the top seem to share a number of personality traits. As a group, the hot new rich work extraordinarily hard. They are more willing to take risks than the average citizen. Many are loners. And, notes Journalist Arthur Louis, who has been FORTUNE'S fortune watcher for the past decade, "none of the self-made rich I've ever met seemed to be stupid and just lucky."
Remarkably few of the new rich live with great ostentation. Most have no perceptible hubris. They do not notably bid for Rembrandts, breed horses or skipper their own one-tonners in the Bermuda race (all of which tend to be the pursuits of old wealth). By and large, they are not socialites. None of the dozens of new plutocrats interviewed by TIME is a gourmet, a connoisseur, a collector of fine furniture, old wine or (for the most part) new lovers—though they do tend to like fancy cars. Their relative austerity suggests not only that they are very busy—which they are—but also that the stimuli and rewards of new wealth lie less in the realization of flamboyant fantasies than in professional prestige and financial security (not a few of TIME'S subjects grew up in poverty). Many simply bank their booty.