In his novel The rich young manScott Fitzgerald wrote that famous phrase: “The rich are different from us. (…) They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than us.” Years later, Ernest Hemingway, who was his friend but also disloyal and arrogant, included the quote in his book The snows of Kilimanjaroin the mouth of Scott Fitzgerald himself and in a derogatory tone. Hemingway wittily replied through his protagonist: “Yes, they are different from us, but only in that they have much more money.” In the version that has survived to this day, Hemingway replaced Scott Fitzgerald’s name with Julian, but the friendship that united them was mortally wounded. Aside from this literary brawl, The rich young man and The snows of Kilimanjaro They are two novels that can be read in a jiffy and that can introduce us to the understanding of a new breed of rich that emerged in the 19th century (Ford, Rockefeller, JP Morgan) and that has evolved to global technological billionaires like Elon Musk. Today, in 2025, the rich are not only different, but they have lost any connection with us.
There is no longer even philanthropy as we knew it, although the altruism of money has always placed other people under its power and has created social and political relationships contrary to equality. In 2008 a book titled Philanthrocapitalism: how the rich can save the worldby Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, which summarized the fascination with the rich that had been brewing since the beginning of the 20th century, but after the crisis even in the US they began to open their eyes and perceive millionaires as extractive elites, as demonstrated titles like Winners Take All: The Elite’s Farce to Change the World by Anand Giridharadas (2018). We are now in a new phase defined by the growing hegemony of a minority elite that controls money but also communication. The tantrums of great fortunes over having to pay taxes or submit to controls and regulations are becoming more and more frequent and self-conscious. They already have money that we mere mortals cannot even dream of, but if, suddenly, there is the possibility of having a little more, any obstacle is overcome, even if it is democracy or the state. The millionaire patron or donor who finances the wing of a hospital or a museum is about to become extinct. Are there any rich people left like L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, who patriotically asked the French state to raise her taxes?
#Billionaires
