No Such Thing as a Good Billionaire (Yes, that includes Taylor Swift)

The past decade has seen an increase in awareness of wealth and income disparities in the United States. Detractors will often claim that the criticism of that disparity is motivated by the jealousy of lazy people who would rather take handouts than work. They claim that people with massive wealth have worked hard for their money. When you dig deeper and look at the underpinning of those concerns, it becomes clear that neither of those claims are true. It’s impossible for anyone to “earn” a billion dollars through their own labor, and the people making those claims aren’t lazy or jealous.

Capitalism is inherently a system that favors wealth, or capital over labor, hence the name. Capitalism in its most extreme forms such as what we see in the United States, values the capital of the wealthy over the labor of the rest of us which leads to exploitation.

Exploitation is the motivation that drives anti-billionaire sentiment. It is literally impossible to amass a billion dollars through one’s own labor. Instead, billionaires make their money by taking from the rest of us. For example, it’s been estimated that Tesla factories produce 550,000 cars annually and employ 23,000 people, Being that a Model Y costs a little over $50,000. That would mean that factory produces $27.5 billion dollars annually. Granted, there are other costs that go into the car, but based on sale price, each worker is creating almost $1,200,000 of value for the company every year.

Based on data available online, it looks like top salaries for Tesla Factory Workers are roughly $39/hour, or $81,120/year which means that the workers creating the products are bringing home about 7% of the value they create. Even factoring in other expenses that the business has, the vast majority of the value created by the labor of a Tesla factory worker goes to people other than the factory workers.

That also holds true of investments which look to create “shareholder value”, which of course is just another way to frame the same exploitation the enriches corporate executives.

There’s a saying that simply sums up the entire idea: “Corporate profits are stolen wages”.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what Taylor Swift has to do with any of this? In 2023, she joined the Billionaire club as her Eras tour continued to be a major hit. And she made headlines for all her good deeds on that tour, from huge donations to charities in the towns she toured, to giving six figure bonuses to the drivers who carted her gear all around the country.

And arguably, Taylor Swift or any other Celebrity artist or athlete who makes a lot of money works harder than your average billionaire or business executive. however, while they might not be quite as bad as a business mogul, their fortunes are still built on the exploitation of the labor of others. Just think of all the janitors, security staff, concession workers, ticket takers, etc… working at the kinds of venues that wealthy celebrities perform in, and consider how man of them might be struggling to make ends meet, despite the fact that without their work, the events that bring in massive amounts of wealth to celerities couldn’t happen.

On a more personal level, as someone who has a career in the motion picture industry, I put a lot of thought into what class solidarity looks like during the recent writers and actors strikes. After all, I was out of work for months because the unions that represent some of the best paid people in our industry felt they weren’t getting a good deal. The basis of those disputes was the contract minimums that apply to the vast majority of the membership of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA.

For every star, there are dozens if not hundreds of people who struggle to make a living doing the same kind of work but struggling to find a measure of financial security, and they all stood together for better conditions for everyone. It was with a sense of pride that I stood with my fellow laborers whether they’re the stars of the show or if they’re other people like myself working far behind the scenes to help make everything happen, we all understood that a win for any of us is a win for all of us.

I don’t consider celebrities like Taylor Swift as allies, I can recognize that many celebrities do far more work than those who amass their wealth through management or financial trickery. At the end of the day, my stance against billionaires isn’t based on hatred for their wealth, but instead on solidarity with other workers.