The Rich Have Their Uses

By ROB PATTERSON

Back in the late 1960s, we inhabitants of the youth counterculture said, “Eat the rich.” Not literally. But you get the bite and snide yet righteous social and economic justice splash of the line. In more recent decades, I’ve honestly wondered if the saying has flipped around to “Let the rich eat you.”

We live in an age in which billionaires are cultural superstars, and there’s much about it that’s troublesome to any of us with egalitarian leanings, a sense of modesty, and distaste for greed and flaunting one’s wealth. Billionaires dominate the current news cycle and headlines, our attention and the modern public social parade. We recently had a man who hyped himself as a billionaire in the Oval Office. His continued narcissistic cries for attention have been somewhat – do pardon the punny word choice – trumped by another child of wealth who has parlayed that into societal prominence, Elon Musk, with his messy Twitter takeover, massive contradictions, glaring personal issues and knack for bizarre public statements. (Someone very close to me who has worked for Tesla for years said to me: “My boss is a real life troll.”)

Just like people in general, our current crop of billionaires run the gamut. Seattle’s Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates have their shortcomings but also seem at times to at least do some genuine good (Under Bezos’ ownership, the Washington Post reads to me like it has eclipsed the New York Times as the nation’s finest newspaper). In the high-stakes game of finance, Warren Buffett lives an average upper-middle-class lifestyle, and George Soros is the right wing’s favorite Dark Lord of Leftist Evil. The Russian oligarchs around Putin strike me as a gang of vile rat bastards. I rather like Mark Cuban, and he seems to be a fairly good fellow in addition to being a canny businessman.

I do get the bent in many humans to play the game of life as if he (or she) who has the most toys and bucks wins, even if to me it’s a spiritually empty pursuit. A number of years ago, I just pulled a figure out of the air to pose a question that reflects my thoughts on wealth: Does anyone really need more than $30 million? If maybe I scored a big lottery win my perspective could change, but I doubt it.

The gap between the have way (way) too much and have way too little is sinfully amiss in this world. So much so of late that maybe the megarich might want to try more modesty and noblesse oblige. Devoting much of their fortunes towards solving genuine global and human issues would show true nobility, which entails more than position and power.

One billionaire I’ve met and have a genuine fondness for is Richard Branson, the subject of a three-part documentary series on HBO, simply titled “Branson.” My free junket flight from New York to London and back in 1984 on his just launched Virgin Atlantic airline (actually airplane; Virgin was only one at the time) won me a wee bit of favor (syndication and the junkets it brought me were quite nice perks in my younger days).

I interviewed him at the London houseboat where he lived at the time, an old-school utilitarian craft on a central London canal that’s pictured in the doc. And was quite charmed by the man: modest and quite unpretentious in manner, casual in dress and comportment (which, given the tendency of too many Brits to look down on us Yanks is a indication about his character). He had a large model of his first jetliner that he was toying with while we spoke and nearly dropped and broke. And I was amused that a (at that time) multimillionaire kept bumming cigarettes from me.

That’s the post-1960s countercultural vibe he gives off in the doc, and that era was the birthplace of his fortune, but don’t be fooled. His business associates attest to his keen and tough approach to business. He now lives on his own rather lavish private Virgin island as a tax exile.

A double through-line of his expanding businesses and his daredevil balloon trips and space flight make this a gripping bit of entertainment. Branson’s quite a character with complex drives, and his story is fascinating. If you’re going to spend a few hours with a billionaire, he’s just about the best option out there.

Populist Picks

Documentary Film: “Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel” – The Manhattan hotel that was more or less the ground zero residence and place to stay on visits within New York City’s bohemian community has housed and hosted creatives from famed to obscure. This film examines how its rehabilitation under new ownership impacts on some of the Chelsea’s eccentric longtime residents in something of a metaphor for the shift from old New York to what it is today.

Book: “Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke” by Peter Guralnick – Author Guralnick sets the standard for excellence, rich historicism and eloquent understanding in biographies of popular music legends. He makes the case for Cooke’s preeminence as not just a wondrous singer and gifted composer of songs but pioneering music business entrepreneur who took control of his career and civil rights icon who undoubtedly would have left an even greater legacy if he hadn’t been murdered in 1964.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2023

Populist.com