At the Labor Day Parade in Canton this September 7, a spectator along the parade route saw Hands Off! Haywood’s banner “Workers Over Billionaires” and shouted angrily, “You can’t have workers without billionaires!” This statement makes no sense; try repeating it to a local union worker or store employee.
In the history of the world, billionaire is a pretty recent concept – the first person to amass $1 billion was John D. Rockefeller about 100 years ago. The first trillionaire – Elon Musk – came about as recently as June. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, small businesses represent almost half of US and generate 43.5% of its GDP. They are almost never run by billionaires.
Businesses and corporations are dependent on workers who have to agree to the terms they work under. At some point wealth breaks away from dependency and fuels itself. It used to be in the 1950s and 60s a typical CEO of a major corporation earned 30 to 40 times that of a typical worker in that corporation. Today the typical CEO makes 400 times the earnings of that average employee worker.
The top 1% of wealth holders in the US now are worth more than the bottom 90%. Tax laws and numerous legal shell games keep their wealth untouched. All of this wealth would not have been possible without an infrastructure-water, electricity, roads, internet, etc., developed and paid for by the taxpayer. The technologies these oligarchs relied on to make their fortunes were developed by universities and technical institutions, public and private. Often the breakthroughs that people grew rich from were exploited by them using questionable methods.
Billionaires today could return the favor back to the taxpayer by funding education, public health, and other worthy causes, as Warren Buffett has pledged to do with 99% of his wealth. Lately the Walton (Walmart) Family, like the Rockefellers, Ford, and Carnegie families of old, has also made wonderful contributions to society.
But the nauseating greed, corruption, and personal consumption of many billionaires today resembles French royalty before the French revolution, and before their beheading by angry mobs.