Why Do We Hero-Worship Billionaires?

I’m fascinated by our apparent infatuation with billionaires. We can’t seem to get enough of them. They’re all over social media. Their exploits are followed breathlessly across the mainstream media. They seem to be revered above all other members of society. To me, it feels counterintuitive.

Wealth Disparity

The top 0.1 percent of households in the United States control nearly 14 percent of the nation’s wealth. The top 1 percent control from 30 to 35 percent. The bottom 50 percent control only 2.5 percent. This disparity deepens every year, concentrating wealth evermore in the top 0.1 percent—that is, in the pockets of the billionaires—while 80 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

Economists and social scientists warn that such a disparity in wealth distribution creates a breeding ground for deterioration in trust of institutions, public health crises, political unrest, increased crime and violence, geopolitical destabilization, and the like.

Source: WikiImages / Pixabay

Pitchforks and Torches?

Considering such factors, one might hypothesize that the country is nearing a French Revolution-style, torch-and-pitchfork revolt. Yet, in the most recent election, one focused heavily on family-level economic hardship, the billionaires seemed to have skated through, free of antipathy or incrimination—the blame for the nation’s ills falling largely upon its lowest earners (immigrants). One side paraded out billionaires in their rallies, promising to feature them in government management.

Rather than seething with resentment toward such individuals, we seem to admire, honor, emulate, and even worship them. We affix to them mythical statuses. We call them “geniuses” and see them as modern-day heroes. We credit them for driving our economy and keeping us all employed. There’s nothing new to this. Americans have a long history of deep fascination with, and devotion to, the super-rich—Rockefellers, Carnegies, Kennedys, Vanderbilts, and others. But from whence does such reverence arise?

Buying Into the Myth of the Free Market

I would argue that much of our adoration arises from a starry-eyed conceptualization of American capitalism. The American economy is booming. It is the world's envy, dramatically bouncing back faster and better than any other from the pandemic. Much credit is directed to our “free market” economic system where inhibitory government regulations are limited, competition is encouraged, innovation is rewarded, and potential earnings are unrestricted.

Our system is a great meritocracy, predicated on free and open competition. Do your work more intelligently, insightfully, and efficiently than those around you and you skyrocket to the top of the heap and enjoy the spoils.

And who personifies this ethic better than our billionaires? We salute them and admire them for their seismic success within the system. We convince ourselves that they got to where they are through grit, determination, brilliance, industry, flashes of startling insight, being mavericks, disrupting the status quo, having better ideas, producing superior products, and so forth.

An Unlevel Playing Field

But, at least concerning the super-rich, our system is hardly a meritocracy. Every one of them has benefited from a hopelessly unlevel playing field. The game is rigged. Right from the start. Few began from scratch (fewer still from well below scratch). Most benefited from familial wealth, superior schooling, and nepotistic hiring and promotion. Few, if any, “made it on their own.” Tore through the system as a lone maverick, pulling disruptive innovation out of thin air. None could have done what they did without a supportive and generous familial-societal-governmental infrastructure; without the creativity, brilliance, and innovation of many underlings, underlings whose intellectual property was relentlessly and remorselessly borrowed, and without a good deal of predatory practices upon surrounding competitors and industries.

Source: willoh / Pixabay

The Reality of Billionaires

Billionaires don’t infuse the economy with cash. There is no trickle-down to the rest of us. They are black holes of capital, sucking it out of the system and sequestering it away. They don’t foster competition; they seek to shut it down, litigate it away, or buy it out—often leveraging resources they don’t have. They aren’t job creators, they are economizers, consolidators, liquidators—the least amount of workers (at the lowest pay) for the largest amount of product is the ideal. They aren’t paragons of generosity. They create charitable foundations to shield their wealth from taxation. They generally aren’t even nice people, trending towards malignant narcissism, Machiavellianism, sociopathy, and other personality disorders. They are geniuses all right, geniuses at manipulating the system, manipulating and exploiting people, exploiting loopholes, exploiting the government, laying claim to the novel ideas and technologies of others, and so forth.

An Excuse to Underachieve?

Why do we buy into the myth that they are paragons of capitalistic meritocracy? Why do we convince ourselves that these are special beings—smarter, quicker, and more intuitive than us? Why would we allow ourselves to be like the serfs in the Middle Ages gazing upon the knights and lords, convinced that we are lesser beings? Does this give us an excuse to underachieve? The lords of the manner are superior to us. We can’t compete. Why over-extend ourselves? Toe the line and at least we might be thrown some moldy bread crusts.

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Or, could it be that acknowledging the insurmountable inequity of the system would be too painful, too dispiriting? Would recognizing it for what it is sink us into learned helplessness and burnout?

Source: Ernie A. Stephens / Pixabay

I suppose, on a more basic level, some of our infatuation comes from a vicarious enjoyment of billionaires' sensationally over-the-top lifestyles. We gawk enviously as they unabashedly jaunt about the world upon their super yachts, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood elites. We peer voyeuristically into their lives in Hawaiian compounds, top-end sports cars, lavish parties, priceless art collections, Paris fashion shows, and months spent on the French Riviera. Perhaps we tell ourselves that with the right alignment of the stars, we, too, could someday bask in such a brilliant, sun-soaked existence.

The Risk of Hero Worship

I don’t profess to have the answers. But the questions are worth asking. Our uncritical worship may exacerbate an already dangerous level of societal inequity and inequality.