Dicks in space

Our labor is billionaire viagra

This morning I got a newsletter from Vanity Fair with the headline “Will Jeff Bezos save us all?”

I snort-laughed into my coffee. Because it’s a hilarious question with a painfully obvious answer:

Uh, nope.

Hear me out: we really have to stop expecting the ultra-wealthy to also be benevolent philanthropists.

That’s not their bag.

They didn’t get rich because they’re inherently good or smart. And it’s a fallacy that billionaires are genius innovators.

They’re not.

They’re billionaires because they got really good at a really bad game: late-stage capitalism. It’s a game you win by breaking laws, abusing the labor force, and manipulating governments. It’s a game that rewards venality, and it’s a game that values not having any values.

So no, they’re not coming to save us because they don’t give a shit about us.

They won’t spend their billions on climate change, ending poverty, or feeding hungry children, even though they could. You can write headlines about how horrible and selfish they are until you run out of ink. You can quantify the good they could do with just a fraction of their wealth.

And, sure, you can fill their Twitter mentions with your rage. But you might as well write that tweet on a post-it and launch it into the ocean, David. They can’t hear you.

See, the thing about Bezos and Musk and Branson is that they’re not unique snowflakes. If they give away all of their money tomorrow, there will still be three fresh assholes in line behind them, ready to turn the exploitation of people and governments into billions.

Because no one earns a billion dollars. Billionaires exist because something went horribly wrong on our watch.

So our rage is misdirected.

Our collective anger should be laser-focused on the people who built and maintain the system that allowed these flaccid Bond villains to thrive.

Instead of tweeting at Bezos, let’s take that energy and find every craven politician who wrote a loophole into tax legislation, every public-servant-turned-lobbyist greasing Amazon’s interests into law. Let’s pay attention to every bill, every taxpayer subsidy, every bailout, and every time one of these companies crushes a union.

While we’re at it, let’s follow and advocate for strong antitrust legislation, that will introduce competition into the market and force down monopolies like Amazon. Let’s make a hell of a lot of noise for living wages, basic income, and worker’s rights.

And let’s demand that our representatives tax billionaires until they stop being able to afford to go to fucking space.

These dick-shaped humans with their dick-shaped mega-yachts and dick-shaped rockets aren’t going to save our world, because they’re here to fuck it.

The only way we’re going to save ourselves and our planet is to cock block some billionaires.

Thank you for coming to my expletive-laced rant. Welcome, and I’m sorry? I write a bi-weekly newsletter that has these vibes. If that’s your jam, you can join us every week here.