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The Structural Context for Billionaires

Chapter 3 describes how, over the past decades, structural changes within the material, ideational, and institutional realms have expanded the opportunities for individuals to become extremely rich and to engage in politics. At the material level, post-1950, globalization has amplified the benefits of those who succeed in “winner-take-all” markets, which is further supported by the peacefulness that developed countries have enjoyed after the Second World War. Neoliberalism is the ideology behind globalizing markets, privatization, and deregulation, and its celebration of entrepreneurship is turning the self-made billionaire into a normative role model. At the institutional level, states have been highly involved in facilitating economic globalization, reducing many barriers that curbed business before. The shift from the welfare to the competition state, which includes the liberalization of trade, the protection of foreign investments, and tax havens, favors capital. Oftentimes, it will be argued, the same structural transformations that promote opportunities for individual wealth accumulation also provide openings in world politics for individuals to exercise power, as private authority has gained legitimacy within global governance.