Originally published in print February 2021.
Awestruck by the power of billionaires, people often idolize figures like Elon Musk for their entrepreneurial skills and strive towards the same. However, for many the word conjures up feelings of exasperation, and they become allured by the ‘eat the rich’ agenda. The billionaire debate has divided a vast amount of people, particularly in recent years as the super-rich get even richer and the wealth gap continues to widen to record levels. The pandemic has made us keenly aware of our reliance on companies like Amazon, consequently drawing our attention towards Jeff Bezos and the insurmountable wealth held by a minority of super-rich people. This new-found, heightened sense of awareness has brought to light both Bezos’ individual profiteering in the last year and the unethical state of his worker’s conditions, which leaves one wondering- could one ever be an ethical billionaire?
The varied effects of Covid-19 have truly shed a light on the current social wealth inequalities prevalent in the world. Jeff Bezos, to name but one culprit, has amassed significant wealth in the last year through Amazon, by using the pandemic as leverage to exploit vulnerable customers at no personal cost. Before the pandemic, Bezos earned $5005 on average per day, and in 2020 he was raking in a grand total of $321 million daily, but at what ethical cost? By selling essential PPE kits at exorbitant prices, heads of massive organisations were building an empire at the expense of others. Millions have lost work and are facing eviction and poverty and yet billionaires are at an advantage, profiting off the misfortune of the masses. Consider this: what could be ethical about the vast majority of global wealth being hoarded in the hands of a few? Billionaires are innately immoral because of the sheer concentration of wealth they represent which is accumulated at the expense of others, exploitation of labour is almost inevitable to ever make such an incomprehensible amount of money.
As I type this very sentence, the constant battle between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to claim the title of the world’s richest person rages on and with every passing second the figures representing their obscene wealth continue to fluctuate. Having already secured first place on the charts, Jeff Bezos, founder, CEO and president of Amazon, was the first ever ‘centi-billionaire’ on the Forbes wealth index, a new word created to encapsulate the extent of his ever-increasing net worth, which currently sits at around $184.9 billion. Elon Musk is a fresher face on the multi-billionaire scene but has managed to amass a similar net worth of $184.6 billion, a whopping $140 billion of which was accumulated in 2020 alone. Both have come under fire for suppressing their workers’ attempts to unionise on multiple occasions. Unionisation has many important humanist effects- leading to an overall increase in job satisfaction and helping to eradicate wage inequality; the suppression of these efforts shows a lack of regard for employee welfare and fulfillment. Workers at Tesla that have tried to voice concerns about unsafe factory working conditions or engaged in pro-union conversation or support have been silenced by ‘intimidation tactics’ such as the prospect of being fired, the reasons for mass-firing of workers who have shown support for pro-union ideals in the past sometimes being masked by a failure to meet performance expectations. Despite Musk’s declaration that the company is union-neutral, it is clear that they have strong anti-union sentiments and actively engage in scaremongering approaches to quell employee complaints. Amazon employees face a similar dilemma, with no worker’s union in place even after numerous strikes and attempts to organise one in recent years. The last notable strikes took place on a global scale around Black Friday 2020-with trade unions and warehouse workers from Bangladesh, India, France, Spain, the U.S., the U.K. and beyond taking part. This international coalition participated in coordinated work stoppages and strikes under the slogan ‘Make Amazon Pay’, the scale of which has not been seen before. ‘Make Amazon Pay’ laid forth a number of reasonable demands to the corporation including: improving pay and health and safety conditions, permission for workers to unionise, ending harassment and surveillance and ensured job security, to name but a few.
In spite of all this, Elon Musk seems to have maintained an almost untouchable celebrity-like allure. On the contrary, Bezos continues to be painted as evil and inhumane- what is it that sets these two equally morally questionable characters apart? The media has portrayed Elon Musk as a charismatic entrepreneur with his quirky online musings, as opposed to the scheming money-making mastermind image of Bezos, making him appear more relatable than his competitor. However, there is a danger of being lured into this false sense of security and camaraderie with billionaires, Musk claims to be a socialist but this persona is a facade to mask the ruthless venture capitalist he really is; the way in which Musk portrays himself online is not a true reflection of how he conducts his businesses. It is important to be mindful of the many faces of billionaires like Musk as what they usually say is meticulously crafted to appeal to their target audience and uphold a reputation that will make them money.
One might argue that billionaires make a valuable contribution to philanthropic causes, but this really only serves to whitewash their reputation to continue their exploitative pursuit of wealth. Philanthropic agendas are often merely used as a disguise for tax avoidance, particularly in the art world. The super-rich both collect and donate priceless art for their own benefit; the practice makes them appear charitable and cultured, whilst also subtly flaunting their wealth even though it is a ploy to reduce their tax burden. Loopholes in international tax laws and the unregulated nature of the art market serve as the perfect mechanism to aid tax avoidance, with billionaires being known to hoard millions worth of art in yachts offshore.
In 2019, Jeff Bezos donated $98.5 million to charitable organisations across the U.S. that help the homeless – so thoughtful, right? However, when you put it into perspective this is a miniscule portion of approximately 0.9% of his 109 billion dollar net worth at the time of the donation, which might I add has since soared to even more unfathomable heights. This is the equivalent of the average earning American donating $45. We need to stop applauding billionaires for performative acts of kindness such as these when they do not even do the bare minimum of providing their employees with a wage that reflects their work. These seemingly charitable actions amount to nothing more than meaningless lip service, not the thoughtful and generous gestures that we are constantly led to believe they are.
