The public is infatuated with the ultra-wealthy. Billionaires are often praised for “riching right,” captivating lower-classes with luxurious mansions and cars. However, these elites more often than not prioritize profit over people. People must stop romanticizing the lifestyles of billionaires who exploit those beneath them, lobby for policies that make them wealthier, and hoard more money than they will ever use in a lifetime.
Billionaires have a long history of exploiting people. It’s the main reason they are able to reach and maintain their status. For one, they drive up housing costs by buying dozens of mansions across the country. Mark Zuckerberg bought 11 homes in Palo Alto to build his own private compound. These kinds of actions inflate the cost of land and construction, damaging an already broken housing market. Billionaires also buy single family and rental homes to dominate the market and upcharge residences so that the middle/lower class can barely get by. Business owning elites don’t proportionately increase wages by production or revenue. For example, Amazon is a trillion dollar company, headed by multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, yet they don’t even pay their workers a livable wage. According to World Population Review, nowhere in the US is the livable wage below 40k, yet the median salary at Amazon is around 38k, proving how little they care for the poor. Still, people see them as idols.
Additionally, billionaires lobby for policies that go against the average person’s best interest. They do this in two major ways: PAC’s and individual donations. Miriam Adelson, Israeli American billionaire and 48th richest person in the world, is one of the Republican party’s largest individual donors. On the other hand, billionaire Leonid Radvinsky donated over 11 million dollars to AIPAC, the third largest PAC in the U.S., who have donated hundreds of thousands to members of Congress, buying their way into politics. These PACs and individual donors lobby for policies that only benefit them, without regard to 99% of America.
Many argue that billionaires don’t owe anyone anything because it’s their money. But with more money than they could ever reasonably use, they have the moral obligation to give back to the rest of America, especially those who work to give them their status. Plus, the reason they make so much is because they give out so little. According to Forbes, the most generous donate less than 5% of their income, with many donating less than 1%. To put that into perspective, 1% of a billion is 10 million, which is 8.7 million more than what the average person makes in their lifetime, and yet to a billionaire it’s pocket change. They don’t concern themselves with the lives of a regular person, yet people still praise them for “hard work” on the internet.
There is no logical reason to romanticize even the concept of a billionaire; people must understand that most billionaires aren’t acting in your best interest. While a wealth gap will always exist in a free market economy, it is currently preposterously extreme, and people certainly shouldn’t romanticize it being so.
