I have long, per the head of this blog, called myself a "leftist of some sort, at least for America."
In other words, while not an intellectual descendant of a 1968 French New Leftist, I am, and remain outside, at national (and more and more at state) voting levels, the two-party political box. I also call myself a "postcapitalist," in part as an invitation to debate and Socratic dialogue about just what capitalism is, and in part a rejection of the term "anticapitalist," in large part because of its Marxist implications.
With that said, two relatively new books I read in the last month both talk about class issues in America, but both end up being at least bits of disappointment, or in the first case, a fair amount of disappointment.
I offer expanded versions of Goodreads reviews of both, tied together.
Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West by Justin Farrell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A good book, but could have been better in a few ways, even as an academic book, without going over the bend into polemics.
The biggest takeaway? Land trusts are generally the devil! I've long known how much environmental groups are in bed with money, but this with land trusts, primarily the local ones, but probably indirectly, more and more, involving groups like The Nature Conservancy across all 50 states, is now more stark.
Beyond that?
The good, is above all showing the huge income gap and the even more massive wealth gap in Teton County, Wyoming, followed by multiple hypocrisies of these "malefactors of great wealth." One of them is how they claim to be conservationists, but not only burn massive amounts of money on 10,000 square foot, or MUCH larger McMegaMansions, but much worse, how many of them made their bucks in things like planet-raping oil and gas. The second biggest would probably be that they think, per Trumpianism, that transactional relationships with the hired help really are friendships. Third is probably that they probably truly believe that their conservation based philanthropy, which ignores the local food bank, crisis center and rent hikes, really shows their charitable nature. Fourth is their obliviousness to the realities of Nos. 2-3.
Other good things?
Good in repeatedly noting the self-delusions. However, this is one of several failures to connect the dots better or follow up more. Are those self-delusions always unconscious? Were they at the start, at least? A couple of the ultras indicate that for them personally, they may partially realize they're self-delusional and thus it is conscious to a degree, but that's as far as it knows.
He's on noting the dressing down to "be like the natives." Somewhat notes this reduces in-group competition. Would have been a sidebar, but could have had more on that aspect of the costume wearing. If that particular aspect of sociology isn't his strong point, he is at Yale; get help!
But, Farrell then follows up with the established saying the nouveau riche for Teton are making Jackson Hole another Aspen. Well, there was a time that Aspen wasn’t that.
Good on noting the “ladder-puller-uppers.” Like that above.
But, there are times that, even as an academic, not a polemicist, he either doesn't connect the dots enough, or gave me other hesitations.
One hesitation was near the start. He had me worried at first when he favorably cited Arlie Russell Hochschild. And, no, I'm not a fan of her listening tour book, in part because she seemed totally unconscious to the idea that conservatives would never do such a thing. And, that good non-liberal leftist types know this.
Other missed dot-connecting?
Surprised he didn't explicitly note the ultra-wealthy look at working poor and lower middle class, at least Anglo ones, as "Rousselian noble savages." And, he's a sociology prof. He knows the idea and phrases like that. Why he didn't delve into that explicitly, I don't know. Maybe Yale domesticated him a bit already.
Later in the book, he didn't note that during the "robber baron" era, academics said these robber barons proved the truth of Social Darwinism. It’s even more interesting that he doesn’t mention that, because at places like page 223, when the plutocrats talk about why they’re resented, some go straight to Social Darwinism. Again, he's an academic sociologist; these missed dot-connectings start to look deliberate when repeated. See Hochschild, and liberals vs leftists.
Cites a Rockefeller scion by name early on, but anonymizes another "whose last name is nationally famous and perhaps has exposed him to more public scrutiny about his family's wealth." Why is this one anonymous? That said, is it the same person and was this a slip?
Another not-so-good? Farrell never talks about what not being born “affluent” means to the ultra-wealthy who claim they weren't. Does he have family histories on any of them? From the amount of research he did, with multiple helps, presumably from graduate assistants, I presume he does, and this is another deliberately missed dot connection.
Farrell's lucky, in the end, to get 4 stars instead of 3 and I reserve the right to change this.
==
Update: Michael Mechanic's "Jackpot" (of which I'll have a review in a few days) DOES connect these dots, including explicitly using the phrase "Social Darwinism." He also notes that, contra insinuations by Farrell, the rich, and the children of the rich, have been studied plenty enough in the past for their attitudes toward charity, attitudes toward other people, and more. As for "interviews," well, Mechanic does enough of them himself, and relies on some from the past.
My review of this book, as previously hinted, gets cut to three stars.
View all my reviews
And, with that tagline update at the end, here is "Jackpot":
Jackpot: How the Super-Rich Really Live—and How Their Wealth Harms Us All by Michael Mechanic
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
An anecdote early in the book explains what we’re up against.
Nick Hanauer, self-appointed plutocratic scold of present plutocrats, says, in essence, that he can’t be a truly effective scold until he’s a billionaire. The approximately $500 million he’s worth now isn’t enough.
Reality? Billionaires like Bill Gates have long been saying that things like the estate tax and top marginal rates need to be fixed, Nick.
From there, Mike Mechanic gives us chapter and verse on many important issues.
First, it’s not those lazy sluggard poor people who buy the most lotto tickets, though that fits the narratives of both poor and middle class. Rather, it’s the middle class. Although Mechanic doesn’t spell it out, it’s probably because the middle class still believes in the myth of mobility and is trying to get a quick realization of it. (Truth? Old Europe, as he notes later, has more mobility.)
Then, it’s off to the bulk of the book: How the megarich winning the jackpot plays out in so many ways, most of which hurt the rest of us.
A lot of it, Mechanic notes, is tax and investment related. That includes 529 accounts for kids or grandkids to go to college, with enough of it tax-free to fund a Stanford or Harvard education. Sure, the middle class can use the same accounts, but they simply don’t make enough to contribute that much.
Or, the alphabet soup of different trusts that can be used to escape gift taxes.
Outside of taxes, the rich can buy health through living in better places, and when health does become a problem, in our capitalist Merika without national health care, buy “concierge” health services.
In fact, the idea of “concierge” type services for the ultrarich pops up in a number of places, Mechanic shows. Bespoke tailoring. Personal assistants.
And, what that really means is buying time, ultimately. Money is time.
Even their charitable giving, to expand beyond Justin Ferrell’s “Billionaire Wilderness,” is self-centered. If not land trusts that actually cut their taxes, it’s classical music and museums that benefit their lifestyle, or universities that benefit their kids. (Like Jared Kushner’s dad, cited in the book.)
Sidebar to the land trusts and Ferrell’s book, yet other research (again showing how Farrell either was sloppy in not looking to connect dots or else pulled some punches) shows that climate change ranks much lower with the plutocrats than with average Americans.
And, it’s not just for those reasons that the rich, and even more the ultrarich, don’t contribute to what you and I would call charity — food banks, battered women’s shelters, homeless shelters, etc. Rather, Mechanic shows that their riches have made them benumbed to caring about the less fortunate, even a bit sociopathic about it.
But, they’re not happy, or content, in many cases. Insecurity fears fueled by their wealth is one reason. Dick-swinging (and yes, Mechanic uses the phrase) is another.
But, even in their darkened corners of plutocratic unhappiness, they still believe themselves to have been “chosen.” Mechanic misses a bit of a point here by not looking more at the “Success Gospel,” or “The Secret,” for Oprah-like New Agers. But, he does talk directly about how the plutocrats cite Social Darwinism ideas to justify their wealth.
Again, we pay the costs for this, with increased social stratification and more.
Speaking of? Mechanic gives us chapters on Blacks and wealth and women and wealth.
Not every plutocrat is like this. Mechanic cites a number who have taken the “Giving Pledge,” based on ideas of Andrew Carnegie. But, many of them aren’t giving it away THAT radically. A few are, and Mechanic discusses them at the end.
Problem, though: They’re, in essence, the exception that proves the rule.
And, that leads to the one weakness of the book: It’s great on analysis, but lacking in prescriptiveness, even as Mechanic notes that, at the national political level, Democrats in general vote AGAINST constituent desires on fiscal issues, with some exceptions, such as a friend of his now in Congress. I mean, it seems clear that 97 percent of the 1 percent, 98 percent of the 0.1 percent, and 99 percent of the 0.01 percent, even if their money doesn’t make them happy, aren’t going voluntarily lessen it either by the giving pledge or by following Hanauer and Gates and pushing for more progressive taxes.
Maybe that’s because he doesn’t know. Or maybe, like Justin Ferrell with “Billionaire Wilderness,” he’s “connected enough” in a small way that he doesn’t want to propose solutions. Mechanic, per one reviewer, has “a master’s degree in cellular and developmental biology from Harvard.”
HARvard! And a graduate degree to boot! I'm not saying he's a sellout. But, he may be more of an incrementalist than I'd like. (I criticized Thomas Piketty's "Capital" for coming from a Frenchman who managed almost never to talk about unions, so I know whereof I speak.) If nothing else, having the resources to do Harvard grad, he has the breathing space to be the iconoclast he professes himself to be on his website.
Also, with all the social psychology research he presents, Mechanic doesn’t address a chicken-or-egg question: Did becoming wealthy make many of the wealthy sociopathic, or did being sociopathic first make many of the wealthy wealthy? (I think of our most recent past president vis-a-vis his one brother, and that brother's daughter who has now written two books about him.)
So, that dropped it to four stars.
I don't know whether this, although having an extra star, was less or more disappointing. I had built up more hopes than I had for "Billionaire Wilderness." (That said, I had originally four-starred it, per the end note.)
That all said? I'd openly read another Mechanic book. Don't think I'd read another Ferrell without eyes wide open and some advance grokking.
View all my reviews
