Around the start of the twenty-first century, the Oxford sociologist Jonathan Gershuny noticed a change in the way the privileged behaved: the leisure class that the economist Thorstein Veblen had described during the Gilded Age seemed no longer to exist. The farther up people were on the income ladder, the harder they worked. “Busyness,” Gershuny concluded, was “the badge of honor for the new superordinate working class.” These days, even the highest-profile billionaires tend to be a little grimfaced. Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos— they practice judo throws, but do they ever smile? Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported on the minting of a new mega-billionaire, the eighty-sixyear-old Texas wildcatter Autry Stephens, who, in February, sold his company and its meticulously assembled Permian drilling rights for twenty-six billion dollars. Stephens had driven to his office every day for forty-five years, lately in an old Toyota Land Cruiser. Was he looking forward to enjoying his extraordinary gains? Not really—he would miss the grind. “There is certainly some sadness on my part,” Stephens said.
Why work this hard? Doesn’t a life of ease beckon? Aren’t there polo ponies to raise? The traditional rationale is to provide comforts to those you love. “Familia, id est substantia,” the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century southern-European jurists argued—in other words, the family is the patrimony. But, at Stephens’s level, the logic dissolves.
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Denne historien er fra May 20, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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The Dark Time. - On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging. The point of contact between NATO and Russia's nuclear stronghold is the small town of Kirkenes. For years, Russia has treated the area as a laboratory, testing intelligence and influence operations before replicating them across Europe.
MIRROR IMAGES
‘A Different Man” and The Substance.”
THE FOOTBALL BRO
Pat McAfee brings a casual new style to ESPN.
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
Proximity to wealth proves perilous in Rumaan Alam’ novel Entitlement.”
EYES WIDE SHUT
How Monet shared a private world.
WITH THE MOSTEST
The very rich hours of Pamela Harriman.
HUGO HAMILTON AUTOBAHN
On the Autobahn outside Frankfurt. November. The fields were covered in a thin sheet of snow.
TRY IT ON
How Law Roach reimagined red-carpet style.
SORRY I'M NOT YOUR CLOWN TODAY
Bowen Yang's trip to Oz, by way of conversion therapy and S..N.L.”
SNIFF TEST
A maverick perfumer tries to make his mark on a storied fashion house.