Zohran Mamdani Is Right About Billionaires
He gets the true meaning of #NoKings
New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani shocked sensitive ears during a recent Meet the Press interview when he said, “I don’t think we should have billionaires.” This was in response to the curiously worded question, “Should billionaires exist?” Although the New York Times treats trans people’s existence as a subject for considerable debate, someone’s net worth isn’t an immutable trait. Reasonable people should believe every human being has a right to exist. The problem is that billionaires, unlike trans people, do have a negative impact on society that’s perhaps more worthy of legislation.
“I don’t think that we should have billionaires,” Mamdani said, “because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality, and ultimately, what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country.”
New York City currently has 66 billionaire residents out of total population of more than 8 million. Sure, I prefer watching video tours of Manhattan homes only billionaires can afford, but it makes sense that the mayor of all New York might try to make the city more affordable for the people who risk their lives cleaning the windows of high-rise apartments on so-called “Billionaire’s Row.”
I admit that I personally recoil whenever progressives say that there’s nothing anyone could do that “justifies” having a billion dollars. A key element of freedom is that an individual shouldn’t have to justify themselves to a collective, but billionaires aren’t themselves a product of freedom. They actively threaten freedom.
Reason reporter Billy Binion posted on social media, “I know it’s trendy to hate billionaires, but many didn’t get rich by accident. Jeff Bezos made goods cheaper & quickly accessible. Bill Gates put computers in homes. Sergey Brin gave the world a search engine that works. I could go on. So yes … they should exist.”
Jeff Bezos isn’t why I can have razor blades and dark soy sauce delivered to my home in less than 24 hours. I’ve never even seen him pitching in during the Christmas rush. Last year, under growing union pressure, Amazon raised the hourly rate of its subcontracted (i.e. no benefits) delivery drivers to $22. That’s $45,767 a year, as long as they never get sick or waste time on bathroom breaks. Amazon “subcontracts” an estimated 390,000 drivers. Jeff Bezos is worth — well “controls” is perhaps a more accurate description — about $177 billion. Amazon’s entire value proposition is “obsessive customer service,” which is delivered on the backs of its “not really for legal purposes” employees, while Bezos tours outer space.
Bill Gates is slightly less odious than Bezos — he has his charitable foundation — but it’s not like he personally put computers in people’s homes. The “great man” theory of politics and economics justifies a multitude of sins. (Yes, Bezos has his eponymous Earth Fund to “fight climate change and protect nature,” but that’s all PR. He’s donated money to a president who’s a walking climate crisis.)
I’m reminded of the scene from the 1992 film Mr. Saturday Night, when Billy Crystal’s character lists everything he’s given his younger brother over the years. His brother doesn’t deny this, but he insists, “Yeah, but you coulda been nicer.”
We can all appreciate two-day shipping — especially if you’re someone with mobility challenges — but that doesn’t mean Bezos should rule over us as a king. I thought we didn’t like kings.
Democratic Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin believes “no kings” is easier for her constituents to understand than “no oligarchs,” but she is focused on the superficial image of a king in frilly clothing wearing a crown. King Charles arguably has less power than Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. Charles can’t unilaterally gut Britain’s foreign aid and if he’d tried, it probably would have meant the end for the Royal Family.
Money is power, and billionaires are impossibly powerful. There are 759 billionaires in the U.S. with a combined total wealth of about $4.48 trillion, a figure that doubled since before pandemic. They profited from a plague.
King Charles is expected to remain apolitical. He doesn’t publicly back the conservative or liberal parties. He doesn’t openly criticize prime ministers. He’s ultimately a well-compensated accessory. King Charles might move behind the scenes to get his way with the press, the idea that he would buy a major news publication or social media platform to advance his own interests is laughable.
Billionaires, including four of the five richest people in the world, enjoyed exalted positions at Donald Trump’s inauguration, and Trump’s primary legislative ambition has involved cutting their taxes. Democrats are less blatant about their devotion to the true ruling class, but it’s clear they don’t want to alienate our yacht-collecting masters. Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin said earlier this year, “There are a lot of good billionaires out there that have been with Democrats, who share our values, and we will take their money, but we’re not taking money from those bad billionaires.”
This attempt to distinguish between “good” and “bad” billionaires is absurd. For one, it suggests a somewhat naive moral distinction. Democrats often condescendingly claim that rural working-class Republicans are voting against their “self-interest,” so why should they believe billionaires would vote against their own “self-interest” and support a self-proclaimed working-class party? If “good” billionaires shared Democratic values, they could easily put those values in action themselves. Why would billionaire businessmen who are openly hostile to unions support pro-labor politicians? A mob boss doesn’t fund a publicly “anti-crime” politician because he’s a “good” gangster. No, he just wants the politician on his payroll.
The relevant question isn’t whether Momdani or anyone else thinks billionaires should exist. They’re not going anyway. What we should ask instead is whether billionaires should have unchecked power. Billionaires are like human monopolies, and we used to understand that monopolies are not a public good.
Bezos spent $50 million on his wedding and showered his new bride with $50 million in jewels. Even King Charles toned down his coronation, in some slight consideration of overall economic conditions. Bezos clearly didn’t care, because he doesn’t answer to the people. He’s part of a callous, parasitic American monarchy that doesn’t bother with any pretense of noblesse oblige.
No, we shouldn’t have billionaires, for the same reason we shouldn’t have kings or queens. Unfortunately, too many liberal politicians who proudly post #NoKings on their social media feeds are nonetheless still searching for their billionaire Prince Charmings. That’s only a fairy tale.
video tours of Manhattan homes only billionaires can afford
This shit, going back to Robin Leach is part of why we are here. People watch this wealth porn with stars in their eyes and think its good. Its not. We should be a society where people who do good are celebrated, not psychopaths who hoard resources to the detriment of millions. And which rich asshole was right there at the begining with his golden toilets on the Lifestyles bullshit show? I have hated that man forever.
The Roosevelts came along before there was such a thing as billionaires, but both TR and FDR were millionaires. Yet, they were progressive on many issues, and helped the non-millionaire Americans enjoy a better standard of living. FDR helped my Grandpa get his dignity back, thanks to FDR's policies, Grandpa got a job (it was the Depression) and was able to provide for his family, which had just increased with the birth of my mother.
It's too bad that today's GOP doesn't have the likes of TR, or even of Eisenhower, in its ranks.