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CULTURE + INEQUALITY
The Fiction of the Self-Made Billionaire
There’s a lot more to astronomical financial success than “hard work”
A few days ago, my daughter made an odd sound; actually, it was more of a noise. Whatever the classification, I’m sure it’s something every parent has heard before. It is the sound of disapproval, unique to young people transitioning from adolescence to adulthood — something between ‘pshaw’ and ‘ugh.’
I think we lose the ability to conjure this unique type of utterance once we leave our parent’s homes and strike out on our own. When I heard the sound, I had to investigate who or what brought on this response. Seeing she’d drawn my attention, my daughter looked up from her mobile phone, her upper lip wrinkled as if reacting to an unpleasant smell, and said: “Kim Kardashian.”
When I asked her what the woman famous for being famous did this time, she responded, as is her cohort’s habit, by texting me an interview of the Kardashian clan, by Variety, the entertainment magazine. The piece contained a video with the following Kim Kardashian quote:
I have the best advice for women in business. Get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days…You have to surround yourself with people that want to work…So if you put in the work, you’ll see results. It’s that simple.
Implicit in Ms. Kardashian’s comment is the opinion that anyone can achieve her enormous financial success — if only they work hard enough. Moreover, her theory is that more of us haven’t risen to her rarified financial heights due to laziness. In other words, those of us who aren’t rich have only ourselves to blame. We just aren’t doing it right.
Interestingly, none of the Kardashians acknowledge their tremendous head start on the road to billionaire status. Indeed, their share of the late Robert Kardashian’s rumored $100 million trust fund provided one hell of a safety net — not to mention being raised by a…
