The New Robber Barons
It occurred to me recently that corporate executives, especially CEOs, are the robber barons of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Robber baron: One of the American industrial or financial magnates of the latter 19th century who became wealthy by unethical means, such as questionable stock-market operations and exploitation of labor.
Today we have multi-billionaires instead of millionaires. And while the robber barons amassed their fortunes by capitalizing on and exploiting the emergence of the industrial revolution, today’s wealthy elite have typically risen to power through manipulation of the poorly regulated corporate construct.
The term robber baron implies an inherent duplicity. While most of the robber barons of the 19th century gained their fortunes through shady business practices, several became famous philanthropists including Carnegie and Rockefeller. Because the same can be said for a few of today’s US billionaires, though, does not dismiss the notion that the majority of these neo-robber barons have manipulated the corporate system to amass huge sums of money, at the expense of their employees, the environment, human rights, and perhaps even US democracy.
Below is a list of the top US billionaires, their ranking and reported worth, and the company/corporation responsible for their wealth (either thru ownership, governance, or inheritance). (Note: I’ve omitted the non-US billionaires from the Wikipedia list, for a more accurate comparison. However, I left the IKEA founder on the list because of his store’s prominence in the US.)
1. Bill Gates - $46.5 billion (Microsoft)
2. Warren Buffett - $44.0 billion (Investor)
6. Ingvar Kamprad - $23.0 billion (IKEA)
7. Paul Allen - $21.0 billion (Microsoft)
9. Larry Ellison - $18.4 billion (Oracle)
10. S. Robson Walton - $18.3 billion (Wal-Mart heir)
11. Jim Walton - $18.2 billion (Wal-Mart heir)
12. John T. Walton -$18.2 billion (deceased in June 2005) (Wal-Mart heir)
13. Alice Walton - $18.0 billion (Wal-Mart heir)
14. Helen Walton - $18.0 billion (Wal-Mart heir)
18. Michael Dell - $16.0 billion (Dell)
19. Sheldon Adelson - $15.6 billion (Las Vegas Sands. Corp., developer)
24. Steven Ballmer - $12.1 billion (Microsoft)
26. Abigail Johnson - $12.0 billion (Fidelity Investments)
26. Barbara Cox Anthony - $11.7 billion (Cox Enterprises)
27. Anne Cox Chambers - $11.7 billion (Cox Enterprises)
30. John Kluge - $11.0 billion (Metromedia, sold to Fox)
32. Forrest Mars, Jr. - $10.4 billion (Mars, Inc. heir)
33. Jacqueline Mars - $10.4 billion (Mars, Inc. heir)
34. John Mars - $10.4 billion (Mars, Inc. heir)
36. Pierre Omidyar - $9.9 billion (eBay)
41. Kirk Kerkorian - $8.9 billion (MGM)
42. Sumner Redstone - $8.8 billion (Viacom)
47. Philip Knight - $8.2 billion (Nike)
50. Carl Icahn - $7.8 billion (TWA)
51. Rupert Murdoch - $7.8 billion (News Corp.)
So, billionaires are the new millionaires, and in most ways today’s corporate-based system is the road to excessive wealth the way that the industrial economic system was. Then it also seems plausible that today’s unchecked corporate executives are no different from the unrestrained robber barons of the Gilded Age.
Cornelius Vanerbilt, the notoriously ruthless robber baron, once quipped, “What do I care about the law: Hain’t I got the power?” What was true then, is becoming inescapably evident again now: An incredibly small percentage of the richest Americans own most of the nation’s wealth, and through this wealth have also secured undue political power. With this political control these elite few are able to reshape American policies to help ensure the increase in their ownership of America. It’s a nasty cycle that leads us closer and closer to a plutocracy and away from our treasured representative democracy. (Notable examples that have become newsworthy include: Enron, Aurthur Anderson, IM Clone, Martha Stewart, Tyco, and WorldCom, to name a few.)
Several times* in the last century, progressives reformers have defended American principles against the usurpation of power by unchecked and unscrupulous robber barons. How much more must the scales tip in favor of the elite before progressive defenders of American ideals initiate reform and regulation of the flawed American corporate system?
*Including: the progressive reforms that brought and end to the Gilded Age, and several of the reforms of FDR’s New Deal.
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