International Workers’ Day Special: No More Billionaire Musicians

Everyone hates billionaires until it’s their fave, am I right? Then they conveniently ignore it. Everyone loves to say eat the rich until it’s someone they have a parasocial connection with, then those values go out the window. They “yaaas queen” Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, and Rihanna and cheer them on as they’ve won at capitalism by joining the billionaires club. People hail them as “ethical” billionaires because they’re entertainers rather than CEOs of Fortune 500 companies or bankers, but the truth is they’re part of the problem and that’s what I’m here to talk about. Once upon a time, I used to think that entertainers could be ethical billionaires, but I’ve since changed my mind. I remember a while back there was that whole Kylie Jenner story where she was about to be a billionaire and people actually started a GoFundMe to make her a billionaire. How delulu parasocial can you get? Thankfully there are a lot of people like me who are just about scraping by who are taking off their rose-tinted glasses and seeing these celebrities for what they are: part of the problem. I’m personally sick of all of this out of touch flex culture content whether it’s the Kardashians renting out a private island for Kim’s 40th birthday or celebrities showing off their Birkin collection or even millionaire influencers showing off all the swag they could easily afford but they get for free because of their fame. What meritocracy? It would turn anyone into a communist. It makes me feel disillusioned with this world and I say that enough is enough! It’s time to redistribute multimillionaire and billionaire wealth. Why do the few people live in abundance while the many are living in squalor. Does anyone really need more than a few million? Do I need to remind you how big a billion is? When you’re a billionaire, not only are you set for life, but so are your descendants for multiple generations: children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren. It’s called generational wealth. An ethical billionaire is like a vegetarian that eats meat, it doesn’t exist!

I’m not a big Taylor Swift or Rihanna fan, I think they occasionally have some good pop songs (ngl, 1989 has some bangers), but I am a really big Beatles fan. When I was a teenager, that’s all I’d talk about, The Beatles! Unless it was about The Beatles, I didn’t care. I’ve grown up since then and I’ve realised that you don’t have to defend everything about the celebrities you adore, you can be critical of your favourites and still like their work overall, and that it’s important to separate art from the artist.

I think the reason people defend these “likeable” entertainer billionaires is because they have created something that has brought them so much joy and is associated with a lot of memories and it’s easy to look past their hoarded wealth when you have a lot of positive associations with things that they’ve created. Like The Beatles have brought me so much joy over the years, that’s how a lot of people feel about Taylor Swift and Rihanna. Another thing is that people find these entertainers relatable because they sing about things that are meaningful to us and resonate with us, when in reality as soon as they step off that stage and hop into their limo en route to their private jet while you leave the stadium and board a crowded bus or a train to go home. Their lives and our lives couldn’t be more different. Celebrities don’t live in the same world we do. People may say that you and Beyonce have the same 24 hours in a day, but the truth is when you have Beyonce’s wealth you get access to portions of other people’s 24 hours – that’s the whole point of waged labour: you sell your skills and time for money. These guys have nannies, cleaners, handymen, chauffeurs, chefs, personal trainers, tailors, stylists, personal shoppers, bodyguards, personal assistants, social media managers, you name it! They pay for all of those peoples’ time so they can focus on enjoying their wealth and doing what they like doing: entertaining. Meanwhile us plebs have to wear multiple hats and do everything and we end up exhausted. Ever try walking a mile back from the shop with your weekly shop? It’s not fun.

Taylor Swift is the name that’s on everyone’s mind because recently she released her latest album The Tortured Poets Department. For me, it’s safe and forgettable and that one Pitchfork review that gave it a 6.6 was a fair assessment (sorry Swifties!). I just see it as a faux artistic, faux deep album of rich white girl problems. It’s alright, not the best or worst music I’ve ever heard. Some good lyrics here and there, but not something I’d go out of my way to listen to. I liked the Eras Tour film, but honestly I feel like we’ve reached peak Taylor Swift and she’s overexposed at this point. I’m tired. I want something new. We need fresh faces in art and art isn’t supposed to be stagnant, complacent, and safe. It’s supposed to push boundaries and take chances. While her ride or die fans, the Swifties, have been praising this album as a masterpiece, many others aren’t feeling the same way. Some of my friends who are fans of her work have said that it’s a lot of the same old same old, she’s hit a creative plateau, and she needs new collaborators and that she has ceased to be relatable because a lot of this album is about personal drama and that she’s become bigger than her music. And I’ve seen a lot of criticism of Taylor Swift herself as a person. She has an amazing PR machine that has cultivated this relatable girl image that endeared her to billions of people around the world, but some people are seeing through it and I’ll explain what people’s issues with her are. I’m tired of people saying that any criticism of Taylor Swift is misogynistic. Enough identity politics. Your identity isn’t a shield.

“I’m the problem, it’s me”: The problem with billionaire musicians

Like I’ve said before, you don’t get to billionaire status ethically. Fortune 500 CEOs underpay workers and take the profits for themselves so it’s really obvious there because it affects common people materially. But what do billionaire musicians and businesspeople have in common? They take advantage of tax loopholes. Rich people write the laws in your country and of course they’re going to make sure that those laws favour them. We used to have a supertax and strong unions and now we don’t, I wonder who was responsible for that change? Rich people, the capitalist class. Sure these billionaire musicians don’t own a Fortune 500 company, but they benefit all the same from this system. They’re billionaires, of course they are going to find ways to pay less tax even though they could totally afford to pay more in tax. They’re billionaires, of course they’re going to use “charity” and “philanthropy” in an attempt to alleviate the problems that come from capitalism and economic inequality while looking like the good guy because the mainstream media is owned by corporations who have the same interests as them. They’re billionaire entertainers, of course they’ll never have to work a 9-5 like the rest of us, they’re just making music and touring or pursuing other artistic endeavours for fun – it’s not for survival. They’re billionaires, of course they are going to own multiple houses and make house prices skyrocket. They’re billionaires, of course they’re going to invest their money in multiple places so their money can make more money. You don’t get to millionaire or billionaire status by just saving money, you gotta invest.

Let’s have a look at Taylor Swift in particular because she’s most popular now. She owns multiple mansions. She has invested over $150 million in real estate, and in the article you can see how she’s using loopholes (like starting companies that only exist on paper) that favour the rich to hoard property while minimising her tax burden. She’s no different from those corporate billionaires, let’s be honest. True Life: I’m Addicted to Owning Property. Meanwhile many of her fellow millennials still are stuck living with their parents or living with roommates, dead end street. Everyone hates landlords until its their favourite pop star right? Of course, she can’t live in all of them at once so she rents out the properties she’s hoarding to other rich people. Think of the carbon footprint of owning multiple mansions. And we have to drink out of these flimsy paper straws? Taylor Swift is also notorious for her emotional support private jet, a Dassault Falcon 7X. Once again, she bought it through a company that exists on paper only. It’s understandable that she doesn’t fly commercial anymore considering she’s the most famous person on the planet and would get mobbed A Hard Day’s Night style anywhere she goes. I get that when you’re an A-list musician you’re busy but do you really need to fly from LA to Nashville all the time? Could have been a Zoom or Teams meeting. Could have been an email. Her jet will even take off on really short flights too when it could easily be a car ride (the Kar-Jenners are especially guilty of this). Remember how Elon Musk took legal action against someone sharing publicly available information about his private jet? Well, Taylor Swift did the same thing, threatening the same person behind the ElonJet account, a young Florida university student named Jack Sweeney. But you love her because unlike Elon Musk, she has musical talent, and she once gave a Canadian girl a few thousand towards their university tuition and once gave an English girl over $30,000 so she could study English at University of Warwick. And we have to bring reusable bags to the grocery store to “save the environment”? And shops have to charge at least 10p for a carrier bag? How about the rich wean themselves off their private jets? Don’t wanna take my word for it? More Perfect Union made a great video about it:

To her credit, she gave bonuses to everyone who had worked on her spectacular Eras Tour – a very nice thing to do no doubt, but really it was just a drop in the bucket for her and a way to avoid taxes and it’s a good PR move that will definitely make that money back for her, let’s be real. When you’re rich, you can just buy good PR to distract the public from the problems your hoarded wealth causes.

Sure, there are rich people who don’t give at all, but why can’t they all pay their fair share of taxes so we can have a welfare state where charity isn’t necessary anymore? Altruism or charity doesn’t cure the disease of capitalism, it only prolongs it. Charity is just a small price to pay for people to think you’re the good guy and “one of the good ones” and that means that you can hold your power. Manufacturing consent. These cynical acts of generosity just mask the horrors of the system. It’s putting a plaster on a festering wound. But Taylor Swift buys twice the amount of carbon offsets needed to cover her private jet use! Ever heard of greenwashing? Flying in a private jet all the time is not sustainable in the first place. Just 1% of the global population is responsible for half of all carbon dioxide emissions associated with flying. I’d rather she cut down use of her private jet. I know she effectively can’t fly commercial because she’s at a level of fame where it’s like a prison – you can’t even step outside your house in peace and all eyes are on you, but I have to imagine there are other options that harm the planet less. It’s not about being perfect, but rather about harm reduction. This carbon offset greenwashing is like when clothing brands market themselves as sustainable, but the most sustainable clothing is the clothing you already own – to their credit Patagonia acknowledged this in an advert. But Taylor Swift generously donates to food banks in every city she plays an Eras Tour date in. Yeah, but you know why poor people need to go to the food bank? Because of income inequality! Because of the greed of the rich! Profits are up, but wages certainly aren’t. Taylor Swift is one of the rich, she’s part of the problem. Sure, she’s not the Waltons or Jeff Bezos who directly cause problems by underpaying workers, but she surely isn’t paying her fair share of taxes. You’re naive if you think she doesn’t take advantage of tax loopholes. No one needs a billion dollars, especially not when there are so many people who are starving and the middle class is dwindling. We’re living in the Gilded Age again but this time with ugly clothes and soulless architecture.

The problem with rich people being altruistic like this is that they get to pick and choose where the money goes and decides who is really worthy of it. Sure the government aren’t perfect, but at least there’s at least more transparency and egalitarianism. Sure those charitable donations can help people right now, but it’s temporary and what’s even more important is systemic change. The rich cause problems with their hoarding of wealth and use a portion of their hoarded wealth as a “remedy” to the problems they had caused. It’s all just a PR stunt full of platitudes and window dressing. Propaganda! You know the saying “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”? Well that philanthropy is going to come with terms and conditions and they’re gonna want some quid pro quo like a building or a wing of a building named after them or they earmark what the funds go towards. It’s straight up unhealthy to have this dependency on wealthy philanthropists. Capitalism is an abusive relationship. Screw this, it’s time to seize the means of production. I wanna see more co-ops and collectives. As for big tech, either nationalise it and make it collectively owned by the people or break up big tech.

Fred Hampton said it best when he said that the answer to capitalism isn’t black capitalism, but rather socialism. I’m tired of this neoliberal rally cry of more female billionaires, more POC billionaires, more disabled billionaires, more neurodivergent billionaires, more queer billionaires, what have you. How about no more billionaires?

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