New World Same Humans #5
Who will think of the billionaires?
Welcome to New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter by TrendWatching’s Global Head of Trends and Insights, David Mattin.
An unusual instalment of New World Same Humans this week. I want to focus on a single issue that affects us all, and that will do much to shape the decades ahead.
I mean the plight of the world’s richest people.
A modest proposal for the protection of billionaires
An old idea about money is currently resurgent. This idea holds that vast agglomerations of private wealth are unfair, socially harmful, and even morally wrong. In its 2020 incarnation it is being used relentlessly to target a single minority group: billionaires.
The intellectual vanguard of the anti-billionaire movement is a loose collective of young thinkers. Take the US writer Anand Giridharadas, whose latest book, Winner Takes All, is a critique of elite philanthropy. Giridharadas says US citizens are ‘passengers in a billionaire hijacking’ thanks to an economic system rigged in favour of the super-rich for decades. Then there’s the Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, who last year went viral when during a panel discussion he coruscated billionaires and big corporations for what he calls their hypocrisy. If billionaires want to save the world, asked Bregman, why can’t they start by paying their taxes? Awkward doesn’t begin to cover it.
The move to cancel billionaires doesn’t stop there. Two of the candidates for Democratic presidential nominee, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, want to levy an annual wealth tax on the ultra-rich. Sanders says ‘billionaires shouldn’t exist’. Meanwhile Thomas Piketty, the highly influential French economist, advises a wealth tax of up to 90% on those worth over $2 billion. He says it is needed to reverse systemic trends that will eventually cause all the world’s wealth to be owned by about seven people.
In the face of this assault it’s no wonder the world’s 2,600 billionaires feel beleaguered. Backed into a corner, they’ve begun a brave struggle to protect their rights.
I raise all this now because that struggle achieved a new, and telling, visibility this week. Let’s try a little experiment. Look at the events of the last seven days and ask yourself: does it really feel as though billionaires have too much power?
In the US, Mike Bloomberg (net worth $64 billion) is running to be the Democratic nominee for president. Having spent $450 million of his own money on ads, the plucky underdog this week earned a place on his first televised debate, where the other candidates were mean to him. Meanwhile, a visibly stressed Mark Zuckerberg ($77 billion) came to Europe. All he was asking for, he said, was a respectful conversation between equal parties. Those parties being (i) himself, and (ii) EU lawmakers who represent the interests of 500 million people. Worn down by their endless wanging on about human rights, Zuckerberg wanted to let legislators know he would allow some regulation of social media. At the core of his proposal is an independent Oversight Board – generously funded by Facebook. Finally, Jeff Bezos ($130 billion) pledged $10 billion to fight climate change. Some observers reckon the money – which will be channelled through the new Bezos Earth Fund – will burden the plutocrat with substantial control over humankind’s existential battle to stop global heating. Cometh the hour, cometh the Amazon delivery.
So you tell me: are we in an age of overmighty billionaires?
The ultra-rich themselves know the opposite is true: they are a persecuted minority. As Bill Gates anxiously observed last month in what was definitely not a wilful misinterpretation of Warren’s wealth tax: ‘I’ve paid more than anyone in taxes, but I’m glad to – if I’d had to pay $20 billion, it’s fine. But when you say I should pay $100 billion, then I’m starting to do a little math about what I have left over.’
Meanwhile, in the UK some journalists – determined to fight for the most vulnerable in society – are concerned that good, socially responsible plutocrats will be caught in the cross-fire of any initiative to ensure that all billionaires obey the law, rather than only the ones that feel like it.
The truth is clear: in 2020 the unfathomably rich face a battle for survival. Seeking merely to wield immense geopolitical power, they face an onslaught of ungenerous scrutiny and suspicion. Now there’s a real danger that some will fall victim to those who say no individual should have a net worth that looks like a national GDP.
The extremely rich are at crisis point. In light of that – and spurred on by the shocking events of this week – I want to mount my own modest proposal to protect billionaires, and to save us all from this madness.
Those who criticise the idea that private philanthropy can solve climate change have a point. To solve humanity’s greatest challenge we need a systemic, collective effort: a moonshot. But if there’s one thing history teaches us, it’s that no government could ever pull off a moonshot. My solution is a commonsense one. The G12 nations should disband their national governments and instead pool sovereignty in a new foundation comprised only of billionaires. From its headquarters in the Swiss mountains, the Davos Assembly for Viable Economics (DAVE) would govern in the interests of all global citizens.
DAVE would be a democracy; every 40 years all 2,600 billionaires would vote in free elections to choose their (and our) leader. Just as with the Papal conclaves that elect each Pope, the billionaires would signal a decision by lighting a fire to send smoke up a special chimney and out to a grateful world. And yes, I’ve foreseen the obvious objection. White smoke will be difficult to see against the snow of the Davos mountains, so DAVE will use green smoke to signal its deep commitment to environmental issues.
That overhaul of global governance also leads to a neat solution on tax. Any sensible proposal must start from where we are today. Right now we hardly tax the ultra-rich: in 2019 the wealthiest 400 American families paid an effective tax rate of 23% according to Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman, who points out that legislating to increase that tax rate is quite complicated.
So efficiency demands that instead we go in the other direction – and encourage our new plutocrat overlords to cancel all taxes for those worth over $1 billion. Freed from complex questions about how to tax themselves, elite wealth creators will be better able to focus on their enlightened dominion over the Earth. Of course, that’s only a temporary solution. Allow the forces of history to act unhindered, and we can build a world in which ordinary people are liberated entirely from the shackles imposed by material things – by banning all private property except for those with over $1 billion in assets. When the DAVEsters own the entire $80 trillion global economy, we will arrive in a new utopia. One in which money itself fades into irrelevance, and we work without the need for payment, secure in the knowledge that the world’s most meritorious 2,600 people are guiding our destiny.
It goes without saying that there will be no need to educate anyone apart from the children of billionaires. That’s not to say ordinary children will be left idle. A select number will be empowered to attend Human Fulfilment Centres, where their behaviours will be used to train the algorithms that will run our ad-funded public services. The rest can play video games. In time they will be accumulated inside a single, giant online game – a kind of state-sponsored Fortnite – in which successful actions earn virtual tokens that can be exchanged for colourful in-game hats.
That’s my plan.
Some may dismiss it as impractical. But the alternative is far worse. Who wants to live in a world in which we come together as citizens and demand the rich pay their share? In which we dare to question a prevailing ideology that prioritises markets over people? And in which we believe again in the power, ingenuity and dignity of the collective? Not me, that’s for sure.
The idea that we could ever muster the organisational energy needed to deal with this issue is absurd. And history offers us no precedent when it comes to dealing with monopolistic corporations and the tycoons that sit at their apex.
We’d be far better off listening to, and learning from, the ultra-rich: after all, they’re rich for a reason.
If you like my plan, pass it on. You never know who might share our understanding.
Until next week,
David.
P.S If you like the illustrations in this email, you should Venmo Nikki Ritmeijer $1 billion. Email me for details.