Let’s Get Rid of the Billionaires… But Which Ones?

It's time the socialists tell us which brand of billionaire we have to get rid of

Wealth, Work, and the Moral Foundations of Economic Power

The modern political imagination has discovered a convenient villain: the billionaire. “Tax the billionaires” has become the chant of the age — a slogan delivered with moral certainty and little discrimination. Vast wealth is treated as a singular phenomenon, a social pathology to be corrected through redistribution.

Yet history, that stubborn corrective to fashionable abstractions, suggests that wealth is neither uniform in origin nor identical in consequence. Not all billionaires arise from the same economic order, nor do all fortunes serve the same civilizational function. The industrial magnates who constructed the physical architecture of American power and the technology elites who command the digital networks of modern life represent distinct expressions of wealth, born of different cultural assumptions and economic incentives.

If our public discourse proposes to abolish billionaires, it might first pause to ask: which billionaires, and what produced them?

For the character of wealth reflects the character of the society that creates it.

The Builder Class — Wealth Rooted in Production

The great industrial fortunes of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emerged from a production-centered civilization. Andrew Carnegie did not merely accumulate capital; he organized steel production at a scale that transformed infrastructure. John D. Rockefeller did not simply amass wealth; he built energy systems that powered industrial expansion. Cornelius Vanderbilt did not merely speculate; he constructed transportation networks that unified markets across a continent.[1]

These men accumulated extraordinary fortunes, but they did so through enterprises that expanded national capacity. Their wealth required decades of capital formation, vast logistical coordination, technical competence, and disciplined organizational effort. Their success was inseparable from the physical construction of the American economy.

The culture that produced them reflected similar priorities. Work was not understood merely as a means of subsistence but as a moral undertaking. Craftsmanship carried dignity. Technical mastery commanded respect. Achievement was visible, measurable, and rooted in production. The social order honored discipline, persistence, and competence.

The industrial magnates were, of course, not saints. Their methods invited justified criticism, and their power was often exercised harshly. Yet their fortunes were bound to the expansion of productive capacity and the creation of durable institutions. Whatever their excesses, they built.

And building requires a civilization that values effort.

The Platform Elite — Wealth Rooted in Scale

The modern technology billionaire emerges from a very different economic and cultural environment. His wealth derives not from the construction of physical systems but from the organization of digital networks. He builds platforms that facilitate communication, commerce, and data exchange at unprecedented scale.[2]

These enterprises satisfy real needs. They provide speed, convenience, and connectivity. They compress distance and accelerate exchange. They organize the vast informational infrastructure of contemporary life.

Yet their relationship to production differs fundamentally from that of the industrial builder. Their outputs are largely intangible. Their operations require relatively small labor forces compared to their valuation. Their wealth accumulates with extraordinary rapidity once network dominance is achieved.

The distinction is structural. A production economy produces builders; a network economy produces platform operators. The economic system rewards what the culture values.

And modern culture prizes speed.

The Cultural Revolution of Immediacy

The extraordinary appeal of the technology billionaire lies not merely in his wealth but in the manner of its acquisition. His fortune appears to materialize almost instantaneously — a start-up launched, a public offering executed, a valuation achieved in a span that would have seemed inconceivable to earlier generations.

Whether this perception captures the full reality of entrepreneurial labor is beside the point. The cultural narrative celebrates acceleration. Where industrial fortunes required decades of accumulation, modern fortunes appear to emerge overnight.

This reflects a broader transformation in social expectations. Modern life is organized around immediacy. Communication is instantaneous. Consumption is frictionless. Information is continuously available. The technological environment teaches that delay is failure and speed is virtue.

A society that compresses time will admire those who do the same.

The Decline of the Work Ethic

The transformation of wealth cannot be understood apart from the transformation of work itself. Earlier American society cultivated a moral understanding of labor. Work provided not merely income but identity, discipline, and social standing. The dignity of labor was not rhetorical ornament but cultural reality.

In recent decades this understanding has weakened. Work is increasingly treated as instrumental — a means to consumption rather than a source of meaning. Stability yields to flexibility; vocation yields to lifestyle. The language of duty and responsibility recedes, replaced by the language of personal fulfillment and self-expression.

Simultaneously, expectations of material comfort and personal satisfaction have risen dramatically. The modern citizen is encouraged to envision a life of exceptional convenience and consumption while remaining less connected to the disciplines historically required to sustain such abundance.

This produces a cultural contradiction. A society cannot indefinitely elevate expectations while diminishing the virtues that make achievement possible. Productivity depends upon discipline. Innovation requires persistence. Prosperity demands effort.

When the moral meaning of work erodes, economic vitality eventually follows.

The Japanese concept of ikigai — fulfillment through meaningful role and responsibility — reflects a cultural recognition that purpose and contribution sustain both individual satisfaction and social stability.[3] A civilization that abandons such principles risks substituting consumption for meaning, with consequences that extend beyond economics.

From Production to Consumption

This transformation reflects a broader historical shift. The late twentieth century witnessed the gradual weakening of the postwar industrial order that had sustained widespread upward mobility. Industrial employment declined, productivity growth slowed, and the cultural centrality of production diminished.[4]

As the economy shifted toward services, finance, and information, consumption assumed a dominant role in social identity. The citizen increasingly understood himself not as producer but as consumer. Economic aspiration became associated less with contribution than with lifestyle.

The change was subtle but profound. A society organized around production cultivates builders. A society organized around consumption cultivates users.

And the types of wealth each produces differ accordingly.

What Kind of Wealth Strengthens a Nation?

The debate over billionaires ultimately concerns the nature of national strength. A nation is not strengthened merely by the accumulation of capital but by the character of the economic activity that generates it.

Wealth strengthens a nation when it expands productive capacity, develops human skill, and builds durable institutions. It strengthens a nation when it cultivates competence, responsibility, and dignity in work. It strengthens a nation when it fosters citizens who experience purpose in contribution rather than identity in consumption.

Wealth detached from production may generate extraordinary fortunes while weakening the cultural foundations upon which prosperity depends. The type of wealth a society rewards reveals what it values — and determines what it becomes.

The Question Beneath the Slogan

The modern call to eliminate billionaires reflects an underlying anxiety about the direction of contemporary civilization. Yet the problem is not simply the existence of great wealth. It is the cultural and economic order that produces particular forms of wealth and rewards particular forms of human activity.

Industrial builder wealth emerged from a civilization that honored discipline, production, and institutional development. Platform wealth reflects a society oriented toward speed, scale, and consumption. Each represents a different vision of human purpose.

If Americans wish to reshape their economic future, they must first decide what kind of work, responsibility, and achievement they intend to honor. The character of wealth follows the character of culture.

The question, therefore, is not whether billionaires should exist. The question is what kind of civilization produces them — and whether that civilization possesses the moral resources necessary to sustain itself.

Endnotes

1. Alfred D. Chandler Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Harvard University Press, 1977).

2. Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age (W.W. Norton, 2014).

3. Gordon Mathews, What Makes Life Worth Living? (University of California Press, 1996).

4. Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights (Simon & Schuster, 1998).