This piece has five parts. First is how billionaires buy power, and second, is about why there are so many billionaires now and not before. Third is about the incredible reality of “billionaire” — change the “m” in millionaire to a “b” and the reality is a thousand times more staggering. Fourth imagines what life would be like without billionaires, and fifth is a very short answer to the biggest question of all: what can we do?
What’s the problem with having billionaires?
They buy power.
Their power reduces the power we have over decisions that affect our lives, and the lives of our children, families, communities, and planet.
They buy all sorts of media, in other words, the information that gets inside our heads. Everything from local to national newspapers, radio and TV stations, film studios, social media applications, university research, and school text books.
They buy the government. Unfortunately, politicians run pretty cheap considering the “return on investment” to large donors. Developers can buy majorities in city councils. Large corporations can buy majorities of state officials and legislatures. Washington DC can be bought by transnational corporations and lobbying groups, including pharmaceuticals, oil companies, and weapons manufacturers. The “return on investment” they receive comes in the form of sweetheart deals, military contracts, and favorable laws, enforcement and tax treatment.
The billionaires can buy focus groups so they can figure out how to sell their preferences to the rest of us. They find out what words, sounds, images, and fears will move us to buy or act — or vote — in ways that are not in our own best interest.
And, they have the resources to stop our great ideas from happening.
Why so many billionaires now and not before?
Taxes.
There was a tax revolt, and the super-rich won. In 1978 voters passed California’s Prop 13, with the focus of helping seniors stay in their homes by flattening the rising property taxes. That was the sales pitch. In fact, especially over time, Prop 13 helped super-rich individuals and corporations, and hurt our younger generations.
The tax revolt spread to other taxes. The top income tax bracket applies only to the top layer of a very high income. The red line in this “top tax bracket” chart will show you its drastic change. The top rate was 91% in 1961. It started to decline, and then it took a steep downturn in the 1980s. The top rate has plateaued in the high 30% range for more than 30 years, no matter who was president.
CEOs and owners apparently could not resist the temptation of paying themselves exorbitant salaries and profits. Automation, for example, could have benefited all workers, with shorter workdays and more time for family, friends, and fun, but instead the benefits of automation went to the decision-makers who reaped all the rewards. Earlier, with a 91% top bracket, they could keep only 9 cents out of every additional dollar, but after the steep decline in the top income tax rate, they can keep more than 60 cents of every additional dollar (if they pay tax at all). Too much temptation.
What exactly is a billion dollars? Is anyone’s time worth $10,000 — every working hour?
At some point I decided to figure out what the hourly wage would have to be for a worker to become a billionaire in a regular job. You might want to run the figures to double check the math! Here are the elements:
- A regular full-time job is 2080 hours a year (52 weeks times 40 hours a week).
- Figure your hourly wage at $10,000 an hour.
- Multiply all that by 50 years, assuming you get paid that wage from age 20 to 70.
- However, tighten your belt and live on only $800,000 a year, for 50 years.
- Save all the rest, and YOU WILL BE A BILLIONAIRE!
How in the world can we imagine that anyone’s time is worth $10,000 an hour when they’re 20? or 70? and every year in between? While we’re at it, did you ever imagine that individuals would have their own space programs?
What might life be like if we didn’t have billionaires?
Since the US is the wealthiest country the world has ever known, if billionaires did not control our government and media, and regular people had more power, many things would improve.
Healthcare. We could easily have the greatest public healthcare system of the 30-plus wealthy industrialized countries in the world — much improved over what we have now, the most expensive and least accessible. Expensive lobbying has stopped the US from having great healthcare. Scroll on this OpenSecrets page on Federal and State Lobbying to the section Top 20 Industries, 2015-2024. One deadly result of that lobbying was our abysmal COVID statistics in the middle of the pandemic (15th highest death toll per capita out of 154 countries).
Peace and Security. If people were allowed to believe that negotiations do work, the vast majority would prefer negotiations rather than war. The weapons industry and their investors would also agree — IF selling weapons of war would stop being so profitable. Then our government would negotiate rather than maintain hundreds of military bases around the world, many times more bases than the total of all other countries combined.
Coddle Kids or Corporations. A conservative friend of mine uses the word “coddle” as in, “We shouldn’t coddle people by giving them welfare benefits.” The fact is that the US government now coddles corporations. What if, instead of corporate welfare, the US did a little coddling of our kids’ health, education and welfare, while still supporting their development into responsible human beings?
Environment. Education. Housing. Income. Justice. As John Muir wrote, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” The bad news AND the good news is that all the problems we face are interconnected, and so are the solutions. When one area gets improved, it has a ripple effect on the other areas in our lives.
What can we do?
Vote for candidates that take no corporate money, which also means no billionaire money. Despite all the big-money efforts to make voters fear that they should not vote Green Party or for anybody but front-runners, in California and elsewhere millions can “safely” vote for Jill Stein, and cast a vote for people, planet and peace.
Try — as much as possible! — to avoid shopping at the biggest retailers, both online and in-person. Amazon and Walmart billionaires make it so easy to buy from them, while they do damage to local economies, independent suppliers, and the tax base. We lose local enterprises in our communities, and we pay more tax ourselves in the form of regressive sales tax, tuition, parcel taxes, parking fees, etc. And even though we as individuals do pay taxes, we still lose public services.
“Follow the money” to understand what’s going on. “Follow your heart” to know what to do about it. We all have different gifts — and wounds — which make us uniquely qualified to do our part toward the world we want. Individual actions are great, and ORGANIZING TOGETHER is what gives our individual efforts power. Guess who said, “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”