Today’s tech billionaires think they’re self-made
geniuses who deserve veneration. But we don’t have to believe that.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/big-tech-founders-gates-neumann-jobs/671519/
Scott Galloway (Professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business) notes:
“Since the mid-1970s, income growth for middle- and low-income households has been sluggish. Income in 2021 for the bottom quintile of households is up 12 percent since 1975, compared with a 95 percent increase for the top quintile. Yes, in some areas of spending, these limited dollars could buy more than ever before—there have never been so many different kinds of sneakers for sale. But that’s cold comfort when health care, education, and housing take ever deeper bites of a stagnating income. And that doesn’t account for the busted 401(k)s, second mortgages, and general financial oppression that my industry—higher education—has levied on lower- and middle-income households.
What turns this from bad to terrible, what makes it un-American, is that these advantages are becoming entrenched. The elites are digging in, protecting their growing fortunes from the risks of the very markets they claim to support. Bailouts, tax breaks, and subsidies are the tools of entrenchment. For those at the top, our capitalism has become cronyism: rugged individualism on the way up, but socialism on the way down”.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/big-tech-founders-gates-neumann-jobs/671519/
Scott Galloway (Professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business) notes:
“Since the mid-1970s, income growth for middle- and low-income households has been sluggish. Income in 2021 for the bottom quintile of households is up 12 percent since 1975, compared with a 95 percent increase for the top quintile. Yes, in some areas of spending, these limited dollars could buy more than ever before—there have never been so many different kinds of sneakers for sale. But that’s cold comfort when health care, education, and housing take ever deeper bites of a stagnating income. And that doesn’t account for the busted 401(k)s, second mortgages, and general financial oppression that my industry—higher education—has levied on lower- and middle-income households.
What turns this from bad to terrible, what makes it un-American, is that these advantages are becoming entrenched. The elites are digging in, protecting their growing fortunes from the risks of the very markets they claim to support. Bailouts, tax breaks, and subsidies are the tools of entrenchment. For those at the top, our capitalism has become cronyism: rugged individualism on the way up, but socialism on the way down”.