The average billionaire (as if they could be average) is a rare breed. Built of sturdy stock, billionaires are legendary, deserving of being held aloft for the masses to kneel before and pray that they too could have the work ethic and intelligence of someone with too much money (as if one could have too much money). Billionaires have put in the time, building themselves up from a place of moderate privilege into rich and powerful beings, proved capable of generating the world’s most useful commodity, shareholder equity.
Who among us hasn’t dreamt of growing up to efficiently create return on investment for brokerages and their clients? Who hasn’t dreamt of helping to design a technology that no one considered the long-term implications of if implemented irresponsibly? Who hasn’t wished that despite being a visionary genius they could ignore the nagging feeling that putting profits over people could somehow be detrimental to the world at large?
None of us, that’s who.
Capitalism is a game that keeps score in assets, and whoever has the most of them is the winner, and nobody dreams of being a loser in the game of life. Of course, it’s impolite to ask how highest scorers earned their wealth, and moot anyway since we already know that it’s from hard work, and not from exploiting workers, loopholes in the tax code, or the environment. They’re just smart and driven enough to play the game better than you. That’s why you aren’t as good as them. The teeming masses get bogged down worrying about laws and ethics, two things that are completely ignored by the ultra-rich. They can ignore it because as a person gains value, from a monetary standpoint, they gain powerful sycophants.
The importance of keeping the extra-moneyed’s money in the system and avoid watching them pack up their business and move it to a bastion of freedom like China, or Saudi Arabia, justifies the highest tax bracket of all in the western world: pay-what-you-want. To enter this tax bracket you need to start maximizing your profits now, so that governments will be sad if you decide to start exploiting workers in a different part of the world. If a large corporation takes their mostly make-work jobs to a different region, punishing their current family of employees, we shouldn’t be mad at executive shot callers, or at a system that forces companies to make decisions driven purely by profit. I mean, the very large and profitable company probably paid more than they did in taxes for an ad campaign about how much they love the people and community in which they’re currently situated, so obviously they want to remain where they are. Rightfully, we get mad at the government, for hassling wealthy businessmen who are definitely trying to improve our lives. As proud members of their community, successful corporations would only leave if they were forced out by the heavy hand of communist interference, disguised as industry regulation.
Another well-deserved perk of being too big to fail is that other laws begin to live in the periphery. This is good news for those that dabble in human trafficking, the main hobby of the super-elite. What enjoyment is there to be had in a good book compared to the thrill of holding people against their will? Everyone unwinds in different ways, and I don’t think it’s fair to shame those who can only relax by inflicting mental and physical abuse on others. What would the world look like without their foresight, or innovation, or outright dismissal of other people’s autonomy? When you think about it, it’s a small price to pay to be able to have an endless supply of cat pictures, bigotry, and ethnonationalism thinly veiled as irony to look at while you’re driving to or from work.
Some people haven’t realized what a blessing it is to have an elite, blood-thirsty cabal of people who most related to the gold-hoarding dragons in the fairy tales their parents and/or nannies read to them when they were children walking around on this pale, blue dot we call home. Instead calling for the abolishment or death of the world’s most effective job creators, it’s no wonder that many of these billionaires are taking steps to protect themselves and their hoard of legitimate, definitely-not-blood-soaked wealth. Now this is just my theory, but I suspect that many of them have turned to the world of Artificial Intelligence, creating robotic doubles to interact with their many fans. This would be safer for them in case they mistook an angry mob as a friendly one. This is a common mistake as modern angry mobs carry fewer torches and pitchforks than mobs of yore. It would also explain the uncanny valley that many of their faces seem permanently affixed in, unsure of what an emotion or human interaction actually looks like.
Additionally, every member of the Private Island Club is constantly researching technology to make leaving the planet easier. Maybe they wish to escape to the Moon, maybe Mars, either way their going to want to take their most loyal subjects to do all of the essential jobs in their new biodome. Who among us wouldn’t want the chance to be a space servant to the first King of Palus Epidemiarum? It’s an especially enticing opportunity when you recognize that being too far away from ol’ moneybags means that you can’t glean any nuggets of wisdom without a considerable delay in the livestream. You should be taking every advantage you can, that’s literally rule number one in ruggedly individualistic capitalism.
How else would you learn that one of the things holding you back from reaching the upper echelons of the cash-ladder is your affinity for buying the products from the very companies owned by the most prosperous. It’s a genius ploy, keeping their financial opponents at bay by tempting them to buy very expensive electronics that they have successfully marketed as being a necessity, or by selling very expensive coffee that you’ll buy every day since it doesn’t matter where you’re currently located because you will be no more than a half a block away from their nearest coffee shop. That’s another lesson from the top, sell very expensive things, and convince the masses that it’s a necessity, or make it so convenient to purchase that the other players, or patrons won’t bat an eye at a coffee that costs roughly ten times as much as a coffee you could have made at home.
Those on the come up need to learn the lesson that if you want to succeed, you need to live a life free of leisure. Hustle constantly, don’t spend money on things that make you happy, only spend money that can lead to making more money. Never forget the mantra of the one percent: happiness isn’t more important than razing the habitat of an endangered species if it leads to bump in the stock price. Also, cut your own hair.
Some sad sacks are so anti-success that they dare “joke” about eating the rich. It’s gross, disrespectful and has led many of Earth’s greatest citizens to feeling bad about their success, and I can’t think of anything worse than a depressed billionaire. It’s not their fault that on the way to becoming a complete and utter success that the proteins in their bodies begin to change. It comes as a result of experimental treatments from doctors that only practice medicine on the people that have the money to ignore scientifically proven treatments. While they will live longer, it makes their muscles a bit plumper, and moister. Also, it distributes body fat advantageously, from a flavour perspective. The people who can afford to do this are very sensitive about the side effects of that which gives them more time to become even better at capitalism. Billionaires have feelings too.
In short, if it wasn’t for the vey rich building wealth on the backs of the very not rich, no one would have anything to aspire to. We’d all still be producing just enough food, housing, and necessities for everyone to survive a harsh winter. No one would be way ahead asset wise; no one would have an office to sit in for forty hours a week, and we’d probably still have to talk to the people in our community just to stave off boredom, and that’s a step in the wrong direction. Three cheers to the upper-est of crusts, role models for all, and the best that humanity has to offer: the Billionaires.
David J. Hughes