Self-Made or Masquerade?: How the Meritocratic Idea of Financial Success Serves the Status Quo

       

   

        "The majority of billionaires in the world are self-made," a CNBC headline writes. "Elon Musk is a self-made billionaire who is redefining the way humanity travels at ground level and through outer space," a Men’s Journal article reads. Coined in 1842 by Senator Henry Clay, the term "self-made" has always carried propagandistic connotations, used to describe wealthy elites who "owe[d] their successes primarily to themselves, and not...[to]outside conditions, such as inheritance." With media coverage heralding billionaires such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos as "self-made" and benevolent exploiters, many Americans have placed their hopes and dreams into a meritocratic idea of financial success, where hard work and effort are the prerequisites toward prosperity. According to the Pew Research Center, this way of thinking is especially prevalent among Republicans (or those who lean Republican) in which 53% of Republicans believe that the rich worked harder than most other people. From personal experience, it does seem that the majority of libertarians that I interact with online seem to hold this belief as well, an unsurprisingly development given that most libertarians subscribe to contract theory and "free-market" principles. However, back to the subject matter at hand, this pernicious belief of the "self-made" billionaire is extremely ideological. It not only hides the class antagonisms between workers and bosses and downplays the mutually-reinforcing relationship between capital and the state, it also creates a personalized image of the rich and powerful that Americans can easily identify with. As a result, it isn't uncommon to see "cults of personality" around billionaires on platforms such as Reddit or Twitter, who feel the need to personally defend their "heroes" out of a belief that they too can work hard and become just as wealthy. On top of ignoring personal connections, wealth inheritance, and the inherent exploitative nature of surplus value extraction, pro-capital propaganda has played a vital role in reinforcing faith in a system dependent on the domination and exploitation of others to survive. In true mass media fashion, legacy outlets’ reliance on PR and propagandistic rhetoric is once again serving the status quo, normalizing the bourgeois (and simplistic) idea that poor people deserve to be poor and rich people deserve to be rich. Hopefully, through a case-study of Elon Musk, this article will prove how such an idea downplays power imbalances between workers and bosses as well as demonstrate how there's no such thing as a "self-made" billionaire. 

      

        "Every billionaire makes their money by lying, cheating, stealing, and exploiting every step of the way," Mike Trombetta argues. This is especially true of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose wealth shot up to $273 billion during the pandemic and whose "growing empire" relies on $4.9 billion in government subsidies. As you may have already noticed by now, Elon is extremely rich; it is actually unfathomable to convey how much $1 billion is, yet alone 273 times that amount. However, I don't intend to bore you about how rich Elon is or rub it in your face; in fact, I intend to do quite the opposite. When it comes to the narrative of the "self-made" billionaire, it undeniably applies to "super-genius, Tony Stark Jr." billionaire Elon Musk. However, what many outlets refuse to tell you is that Elon was born into money. His father, Errol Musk, owned half a share in a Zambian emerald mine, which "funded his family's lavish lifestyle of yachts, skiing holidays, and expensive computers." According to Mike Trombetta, the African mining industry was "known to be incredibly exploitative, with child labor, horrible working conditions, disease, abuse of workers, and fatalities all commonplace." While extracting resources and exploiting predominately Black laborers, the Musk family "had so much money at times...[that they] couldn't even close...[their] safe." Working his way up the corporate ladder from a "position of financial privilege," Musk eventually became Tesla's CEO in 2008, investing millions into the company but was later sued by Martin Eberhard, Tesla's first CEO, after he "started calling himself the company's founder." Although Musk was not the founder of Tesla, the prevailing belief that he is not only makes for a good story but carries considerable prestige; it gives credence to the "self-made" rhetoric that both Musk and the media proclaim.

        Although not exactly the same, Musk's upbringing is similar to other one-percenters such as Bill Gates, who had access to the Teletype Model 33 years before other schools had access to computers. To put it simply, extreme wealth necessitates having the opportunity to extract it, an opportunity that is only afforded to those who come from affluent backgrounds and/or live in families that are able to network and already have established connections. This distinction is especially important in a socially stratified society like America, which heavily favors white males at the expense of Black, brown, gay, lesbian, trans, and disabled folks. For instance, given the centuries of white supremacy and intergenerational wealth, white people own 86% of total U.S. wealth despite making up 60% of the population. As a result, many financial opportunities afforded to white males are not exactly available to disenfranchised groups, who have no other option but to sell their labor-power and subject themselves to exploitative work in order to survive. In the case of disabled folks, "25% of those individuals with a severe disability between ages 18 to 64 are living in poverty." For trans people, trans individuals are more likely to be unemployed, face homelessness, and have worse health overall. Point being, the myth of the "self-made" billionaire ignores socially-constructed power dynamics, inequality, and the various privileges that some people have over others. In the case of Musk, the rhetoric of "self-made" couldn't be further from the truth as he was quite literally born into riches. As a society, we seriously need to challenge this "ancapitsanian" perception of power, work, and wealth as it only serves to reinforce faith in the prevailing economic order and uphold the status quo. Oppressed peoples don't have the luxury of keeping things the way they are. Thus, it is imperative that we build a more equitable social order that embodies the values of liberty, equality, and solidarity.