The billionaire myth takes a beating
Long before Donald Trump rode down the golden escalator or Elon Musk purchased Twitter (now X) or Sam Bankman-fried built a crypto empire, Americans lionized billionaires.
“The idea of a self-made American billionaire is the super-sized version of all other self-made myths, and outlandish to the point of being at least mildly insulting,” Bschools.org, a blog about business schools, explained. “Individual achievement still deserves recognition. But these things don’t operate in a vacuum and massive wealth is never solely attributable to the actions of a single person.”
But, as we have learned again and again this year, sometimes the self-appointed “genius” billionaire is simply a crank, a con man or a beneficiary of familial wealth and luck.
Never has the billionaire myth looked shakier. Trump, the four-times-indicted former president, is facing civil liability for exaggerating his wealth (built on inheritance) and property values. Bankman-fried is facing a lengthy prison sentence for fraud. And Musk, who lost more than half of Twitter’s value, self-incinerated in a now-viral interview in which he crassly told off advertisers.
Whether it is Musk’s meltdown or Trump’s fascist raving about “vermin” and threats directed at Comcast, owner of MSNBC (“Our socalled ‘government’ should come down hard on them and make them pay for their illegal political activity,” he vowed on Truth Social), when outside the protective shell of sycophants and propagandistic media, these characters often reveal themselves to be petulant, deranged and shockingly out of touch with reality. (Note: I am an MSNBC contributor.)
And yet millions still buy into the myth, attributing superior knowledge and ability solely on the basis of accumulated wealth. “The American preoccupation with the genius savior dovetails with the American distrust of government and other public institutions; the conventional neoliberal wisdom is that institutions would be better, more efficient, if they were all run like businesses,” wrote Whizy Kim for Vox.
In 2021, historian Heather Cox Richardson located the roots of the mythology in the days of Reconstruction “when white southerners insisted that federal efforts to enable formerly enslaved men to participate in the economy on terms equal to white men were simply a redistribution of wealth, because the agents and policies required to achieve equality would cost tax dollars.” Labeling any effort to deprive Whites of absolute power and riches built on slavery as “socialism,” the anti-government conservative movement forged in the Gilded Age tried but largely failed to dislodge the New Deal.
“The myth of the cowboy the individualist was a kind of cover for the attitudes that favored large employers, including mining, railroad, financial and ranching interests,” Knute Berger wrote in 2021 for PBS’S Crosscut, expounding on Richardson’s work. “The bosses discouraged workers from unionizing or acting collectively. To the oligarchs East and West, North and South, the idea of the unrestrained individualism of the cowboy, devoid of responsibility for others, suited a divide-and-conquer strategy very well.”
And yet the movement found new strength in the past 50 years: “They called themselves Movement Conservatives, and they celebrated the cowboy who, in their inaccurate
vision, was a hardworking white man who wanted nothing of the government but to be left alone to work out his own future,” Richardson wrote. President Barack Obama in challenging the myth (“You didn’t build that”) attempted to remind these characters that they’ve reaped the benefits of government (which builds the infrastructure, educates the workforce, ensures public confidence in medicines, etc.); for that he was demonized as somehow un-american and anti-capitalist. The episode underscored the degree to which American oligarchs and their political surrogates depend on delusion and denial.
This myth lives on, in large part because the uber-rich are adept at self-promotion, which our celebrity culture gobbles up. “Portraying themselves as rugged individuals who overcame poverty or ‘did it on their own’ remains an effective propaganda tool for the ultrawealthy,” wrote former labor secretary Robert Reich. He continued, “Billionaires say their success proves they can spend money more wisely and efficiently than the government. Well they have no problem with government spending when it comes to corporate subsidies.” And the lure that the ordinary person can achieve the same ends if they just work harder or put forth the next clever idea holds a certain attraction while discouraging policies that seek to equalize the playing field (e.g. a progressive tax system, public investment in education).
Ironically, those in the 21st century who claimed the mantle of the rugged, independent, gun-slinging cowboy turned out to be Silicon Valley geeks, a decidedly unathletic obese real estate tycoon dependent on a cult following and a fleet of Wall Street bankers and traders (the very same who crashed the economy in 2008). What they lack in physical prowess and self-awareness (or understanding of our constitutional system), they made up for in verbal aggression, antisocial behavior, abuse and denigration of women and, ultimately, contempt for pluralistic democracy that depends on acceptance of public virtue and concern for the public good.
Americans should take pride in our entrepreneurs and inventors, but they must remain wary of hucksters, charlatans and narcissistic power-grabbers. Financial success in one arena does not bestow wisdom, virtue or other admirable qualities. We should not cede control over our lives to billionaire “geniuses” whose tactics, rhetoric and mind-set actually underscore the invaluable role of the public sector to defend the interests of Americans, prevent exploitation, create pathways for upward mobility and maintain the rule of law. Ironically, the likes of Trump, Musk and Bankman-fried should remind us of the essential role of a vigorous federal government.