I have previously referred to billionaire Nick Hanauer, and his clear-eyed view of what economic evidence tells us. Hanauer has, for example, explained multiple times why raising the minimum wage, not cutting taxes, creates jobs: it’s when people have enough disposable income to buy your widgets that employers hire people to make them. (When Seattle ignored the plutocrats’ warnings and raised its minimum wage, Hanauer’s position was vindicated.)
In 2023, Hanauer and a co-author wrote a book titled “Corporate Bullshit,” intended to help readers identify the “pernicious propaganda” promulgated by the wealthy. The book identified six categories of falsehoods that Hanauer says repeatedly thwart progress on issues ranging from civil rights, to wealth inequality, climate change, voting rights, and gun responsibility.
As Hanauer points out, Americans have a bad habit of giving credence to arguments made by the wealthy and powerful simply because those making the arguments are wealthy and powerful. (It always reminds me of that lyric from Fiddler on the Roof’s “If I Were A Rich Man.” “The most important men in town would come to call on me, asking questions that would cross a Rabbis eyes–and it won’t make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong…When you’re rich they think you really know.”)
Recently, on Facebook, Hanauer shared a letter he’d sent to one of the “movers and shakers” who spoke at Davos. Since he publicly shared it, I assume I can share it as well.
Here’s his letter:
I listened closely to your remarks at Davos, and you’re right about the core problem: capitalism is losing public trust because prosperity has left too many people behind. I warned us all about this when I wrote “The Pitchforks Are Coming for Us Plutocrats” back in 2014. You’re also correct that GDP and market caps are terrible proxies for whether an economy is actually working for working people.
But here’s the thing—this isn’t a mystery anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long time.
For more than a decade now, I’ve been having conversations—often with people who run large institutions, manage serious capital, and employ thousands—about exactly what to do next.
On Pitchfork Economics and in conversations across the ecosystem, we’ve talked with people like Joseph Stiglitz, Heather Boushey, Mariana Mazzucato, Robert Reich, Todd Tucker, Elizabeth Anderson, Mark Blyth, and many others who have laid out, in plain language, what will actually fix this problem.
They all point to a similar set of solutions:
–Tax extreme wealth and income at levels that reflect their real social cost
– Rebuild antitrust enforcement and curb monopoly power
– Strengthen labor markets and worker bargaining power
– Invest aggressively in public goods that make broad-based prosperity possible
None of this is radical. In fact, it’s how the U.S. built the most prosperous middle class in history. So when you say the answer is more “conversation,” I have to strongly disagree. We’re past the conversation phase. There are many ideas on the table, from every corner of the world. The evidence is overwhelming. And the political backlash you’re worried about is already here precisely because action hasn’t followed conversation.
On behalf of the handful of us zillionaires who have benefited from this system, we don’t need more panels or better messaging. We need the courage to support policies that will redistribute power, not just wealth—and to do so even when it’s uncomfortable or expensive for people like us.
You said that in order to solve inequality, the mountain—meaning Davos—needed to come down to earth. It’s a nice image, but it doesn’t reflect reality. What really needs to happen is the mountain needs to stop extracting from everyone else.
It’s fashionable these days to bash all billionaires, and a large number of them certainly deserve that bashing. But billionaires–like all other groups of people–are not a monolithic category. Just as all Somalis aren’t guilty of fraud in Minneapolis, all Jews do not support Israel’s activities in Gaza, and (possibly) all ICE agents aren’t thugs. We lose our grasp of reality when we fail to recognize the differences within identifiable populations.
Billionaires aren’t all like Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison. There are also people like Nick Hanauer and Abigail Disney. When the people with pitchforks come for the billionaires, as Hanauer has warned, they’ll need to be selective….
Good post this morning. In a consumer has more money to consume, they tend to spend it. DUH!. But the penny-pinching cost accountants want to keep stockholders happy with increasing profits. Not long ago Apple’s stock to a big hit because its profits didn’t grow as quickly or as high as the stockholders wanted them to. And therein lies the problem.
Yes, there are billionaires who actually understand economics and the basics behind growth in a controlled environment. But the greed of the next level in MORE cases drives the “management” to maximize profits at all other costs. Even Henry Ford knew this when he started making cars.
Humans have continually battled the management of greed and hoarding. Those basic, primitive and self-consuming instincts, left to their own devices, will destroy the entity and the population that fails to recognize their weaknesses.
What I would like to see, if I could Genie-blink a new world into being, is an economy that is not based on extraction and exploitation of our natural environment beyond it’s capacity to be sustainable, and that does not exploit people as cogs in a machine. Until we realize our natural world as our own self, and that what we do to it we are doing to ourselves, we will never deal with the fundamental problem of our time, which is the climate crises and social injustice of what Joanna Macy calls “business as usual”.
Our civilization is coming apart. In many ways, I am okay with that, and the sooner the better. What we can do is to imagine and work toward a new way of being that includes respect for the Earth and respect for all the beings who live on her, human and other-than-human.
I wanted to add to the conversation from yesterday, about the hypocrisy of maga/t*ump, especially concerning Mr. Pretti legally carrying a weapon to a protest. I did not notice maga voicing concern about Kyle Rittenhouse wielding an AR15 style rifle at a protest, even though he shot and killed people.
It is simple. What goes round … comes round. You reap what you sow.
Nick writes, “…courage to support policies that will redistribute power…”
That’s delusional. Davos this year was about fear of the little people coming for their wealth and power. They are now in the data collection, surveillance, and protection racket. Nick’s 2014 book was followed by Thomas Piketty, but our country has gotten much worse since then.
Do you think AI is being used to level the playing field?
Of course not!
Bezos paid $75 million for Melania, which made close to $7 million on opening weekend. Then he turned around and fired 33% of the WaPo staff.
Look at how both parties have covered up the Elite accused of pedophilia for three decades. The FBI “monitored” Epstein and his fellow abusers of little girls, but did nothing. If the pedophiles had been the working poor or poor, they would have locked them all up and thrown away the key. Child molesters (ChMos) are looked down on as the most disgusting criminals in all communities. Not among the rich!
Nick Fuentes said that Epstein was “cool” and even made a replica sweater that Epstein wore all the time to sell to his incel groypers. Money buys a lot of protection through mouthpieces.
If you’ve caught Trump’s comments, even in the NY Times, he is threatening to nationalize voting especially in blue states and cities. Bannon wants ICE or police at every precinct. PedoDon is still convinced he lost 2020 because of all the immigrants who voted against him. Musk makes the same claims repeatedly on X. They are laying the groundwork to cheat/steal or cancel the 2026 elections. Even Tulsi Gabbard went to Atlanta this past week.
Nick’s message is way too late as the wealthy oligarchs and Zionists are circling the wagons in 2026.
p.s. In my investigation into Charlie Kirk’s assassination, most all Americans thought TPUSA was a youth movement led by Charlie. However it started, it became a high-tech data-harvesting technique for the cause. Charlie was reaching 3-400 students at a time. Watch closely as Erika pursues filling stadiums to harvest more data for tracking. Things aren’t always what they seem. 😉
Smekens … is this your column … or Sheila’s?
Thank you Norris