Actually if Kylie Jenner could become a self-made billionaire at 21, then I can become one as well. This is what I have heard a lot of people say especially ladies and they go on to say that all they need is just a makeup brand and they are good to go. That dream is quite unreal for a lot of people and while we might say there is something known as a self made billionaire, we could also assume that it is a myth just like Unicorns (the horses) are myths.
The idea of self-made is really impressing as it implies that anyone can crawl their way to the top of the ladder if they are willing to work extra hard and take extra risks even when the wages have been stagnant while the inequality gap between the top 1% and the rest of the population continues to widen and all I see is that looks like a myth.
When we hear the word self-made, what comes to our mind is our regular Elon Musk who was a janitor in a restaurant going from rag to riches all by himself without the help of anyone including the government, rather just by their personal grit and their willingness and courage to take on risks but if we are to say the reality, the origins of many billionaires aren't from Rags in fact, they were nowhere near humble. Their live stories smell an upper middle-class upbringing instead of a humble one.
Something like when Bill Gates mother used her business connections to land Microsoft the deal to help IBM make their software. How many low income earners can pull such strings? Or Elon who came from a family that reportedly owns shares in an Emerald mine in Africa which he has denied after he first came out to say it in 2014, or that Bezos's basement story of Amazon that always mentions the over $250 thousand investment ($245,573) from his parents which gave them a 6% stake in the company. How many parents can invest that and still be able to feed in 1995 if it isn't someone from the upper middle class.
Asides this, let's not forget that these people fail to pay their fair share of taxes along the way to becoming a billionaire from their previous millionaire status. They find loopholes in the tax system and have been able to use those loopholes for their advantage to remain wealthy but then how are they self-made when they pay workers below average wages and subject them to abusive labor condition, we can tell that these isn't rag to riches or self-made in any way.
This doesn't also leave the fact that they always get help from the government on their way to the top. This can come in form of subsidies or in form of contracts. Unless we want to deceive ourselves, everyone who has come to say they made their wealth self made have enjoyed reward from inequality in the system, wealth they inherited one way or the other, exploitation of labor, tax loopholes, and Subsidies and contracts from the government. So are they truly self-made?
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