There is a degree of dishonesty in the enmity toward tycoons and the desire to see them fall. We love to hate tycoons because we are not tycoons. In all likelihood, if I were a tycoon, I would defend with all my heart the economic and social system that allows for our emergence. For the most part, these are simply successful entrepreneurs. In fact, the American Dream feeds on such rags-to-riches stories, and the hope to achieve that dream is what fuels the entire economic system. We hate tycoons because for them, the American Dream came true, and for us, it has become a nightmare, or at best, remains a dream still to be achieved.
Moreover, striving to destroy the tycoons’ businesses can destroy precisely those who fight them the hardest. For all their greed, tycoons provide work for hundreds of thousands of people. If they were to fail, all those whose livelihood depends on them would fail with them. There is merit to the demand of tycoons to sell some of their businesses in order to decrease the centralization of the market, but how will the buyers of these businesses behave? Will they be fairer to the public? Or will they be new tycoons who behave just like the ones from whom they bought the business? In fact, experience shows that sometimes the buyer actually raises prices and cuts jobs more than the previous owner to boost profit, increase returns on the investment and repay the debt with which the purchase was financed.
Indeed, the question of the public’s approach toward tycoons has no simple answer.