Billionaires & Bootstraps: The “Self-Made” Myth
By Clyde
Two of the three Idaho billionaires that we profiled inherited their wealth. It’s nearly impossible to become a billionaire without being born into generational wealth. Of the top 20 billionaires in the world, 15% came from a working class background.
The capitalist class wants you to believe that hard work, self reliance, and frugality will set you up to become a self made millionaire or billionaire.
“You’re one good idea away from becoming a billionaire!”
They do this so you won’t question how they acquired their wealth. These people are able to accumulate and hoard wealth because they’re afforded the security to try and fail in high risk, high reward situations.
When you spend 8, 12, 16, and even more hours of the day working just so you can give that money to the private equity corporation that owns your apartment, to the investor owned utility company, and to the multinational food corporation you don’t have the resources to take big financial risks required to be “self made”.
When you have a safety net (inherited wealth, mentors, wealthy social connections) it’s much easier to try and fail until something works.
When you’re already wealthy you can acquire businesses, buying other people’s hard work.
The capitalist class accuses anyone who works an “unskilled” job of being lazy, or stupid.
They lie to anyone who caught a small, lucky break telling them that raw grit and intelligence got them their success.
They do this so those who did get lucky put themselves in the same category as the “self made” billionaire.