Chuck Collins is not a household name, and I had not heard of him until recently.*1 But his new (2025) book, Burned by Billionaires (BbB) is an excellent work that is especially pertinent now, as for the first time a billionaire occupies the White House and has surrounded himself with fellow billionaires and “centi-millionaires” (people whose net worth is over $100 million).
Collins was “born on third base,” as he says
in an earlier book.*2 He is the great‑grandson of Oscar F. Mayer,
the meat‑packing magnate. In 1985 (when he was 26), Chuck inherited roughly
$500,000 from his family’s Oscar Mayer fortune. That same year, he donated the
entire amount to foundations and community organizations. He later left to live
in a commune.
When his father, a libertarian
conservative, learned of what Chuck had done, he said he was afraid his son had
become a Marxist. Chuck responded by saying that he would rather be called
a “Gandhian or Christian.”*3 He explained that he didn’t
want to spend his life “managing inherited wealth” and that giving it away
freed him to pursue community organizing and economic‑justice work.
Collins is now widely known for his
work exposing how wealth is accumulated, hidden, and protected in the U.S. He
says in the Introduction of BbB “The drive by billionaires to amass ever
greater wealth is warping the nonprofit sector, dictating what’s on your dinner
plate, and shaping the news you consume.”
How Concentrated Wealth and Power are
Ruining Our Lives and Planet
is the subtitle of BbB. Collins writes, “With their inordinate wealth
and power, billionaires are hijacking our political system with their campaign
contributions, paid lobbyists, communication firms, and dark money
contributions."
I cannot even introduce here the important
chapters in this book, but I strongly recommend reading it. It is a bit pricey
to buy, but many public libraries likely have it. (There are several copies in the
various Kansas City metro libraries.)
“An Agenda to Reduce Billionaire Power and Improve Our Lives” is the
title of the final chapter before the Conclusion, and it includes four major
topics with about two dozen subtopics. They are all good suggestions, but they
are not very helpful regarding what we ordinary “peons” can do—other than vote
for legislators who do have power to follow those suggestions.
At the end of the Conclusion, Collins offers this advice: “Get your
information from sources that are not owned and controlled by billionaires.”
That is one small thing I did before reading Collins’ book: I quit subscribing
to and reading The Washington Post. In doing that, I was following the
actions of Jen Rubin, who was the leading opinion article writer of the Post.
In protest to a Jeff Bezos directive in 2025, Rubin left her prominent
position and became co-founder of an online publication called “The
Contrarian,” which I now read daily. That Substack blog, which started with the
tagline “Not owned by anybody,” now has nearly 500,000 subscribers. She allows
“tightwads” like me read it for free, and here is a link if you would like to
try it out: The
Contrarian | Substack.
Ever since the One Big Beautiful (=Ugly) Bill was signed into law on
July 4, 2025, I have been concerned about the growing
control of billionaires and the extremely wealthy over American life—and
incensed that financial resources continue to flow upward to those who need
them least, while the poor suffer even more.
That bill delivered $1 trillion in tax cuts to the top 1% of
taxpayers, while cutting roughly $1 trillion from Medicaid and SNAP—programs
used by the poorest Americans. Nearly half of those tax cuts went to the top
0.1% of earners.
And consider who the POTUS took with him to China last week: 17 CEOs,
several of whom were billionaires. Why were they in his entourage? Mainly because
of the donations they had made to Trump. Several of them had previously donated
$1 million or more to his inaugural fund. So, the president took them along so
they could negotiate with China on behalf of their own business interests. The
appearance of a quid pro quo is hard to miss.
It is also hard to miss the judgmental words of the prophet Amos, pronouncing
woe on the wealthy who “trample on the needy and destroy the poor of the land”
(8:4, CEB)—and it is easy to see that Chuck Collins is a present-day Amos.
_____
*1 The cover of
the December issue of Sojourners magazine was emblazoned with the words
“The Big Steal,” and the cover story was on “The Wealth Extractors: Billionaires
are upending our lives and our economy.” It featured an interview of Collins by
Julie Polter, the editor of Sojourners.
*2 Collins previously
authored a book titled Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case
for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common
Good (2016). The main title is said to be the words of Barry Switzer, the
famous football coach, but they were not original with him.
*3 Collins has
been a lifelong member of the Unitarian Universalist Church.
Note: Research and wording assistance was provided by Claude (Anthropic A.I.).
Interesting article Leroy and I had several Billionaires as Mentors and they were All Great and Wondeful people.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to lean toward the impression that All Billionaires are Bad and there are by Far more Bad poor people than Bad Billionaires.
Just my two cents worth!
John Tim, the first two sections of my blog were about Chuck Collins, and I encourage you to read more by or about him. He was born into a very wealthy family--"born on third base," as he put it in his 2016 book. In their personal lives, most billionaires might not be "bad," and Collins doesn't ever label them that way. But he insists, correctly I think, that billionaires are ruining our lives and planet. That does seem very bad to me.
DeleteIf by bad, you mean people who drink too much, men who beat their wives, bank robbers, etc., sure, there may well be far more bad poor people than bad billionaires. Of course, there are thousands and thousands of times more poor people than billionaires. But in spite of their great number, they are not ruining our lives and planet the way Collins says, correctly I think, that the billionaires are.
My main criticism, though, is the power of the billionaires over the U.S. government now. They are exerting influence and power so that they are increasingly getting wealthier and many poor people are increasingly struggling financially. In the last few years there has been a steady flow of wealth from the poorer segments of society to those at the top. That, too, seems bad to me.
Since you are a strong Bible-believing Christian, perhaps you could give some more thought to what Jesus said to the "rich young ruler" (as he is often called) in Matthew 19:16-22.
Thank you Leroy. I love your sense of justice for the poor!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Andrew! I always appreciate hearing from you, my only Thinking Friend in Great Britain.
DeleteThanks, Leroy. I’ve posted it on FB as well”essential reading.”
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anton. I much appreciate you posting a link to this blog article on Facebook--and for referring to it as "essential reading"!
DeleteHere are brief comments received very early this morning from Thinking Friend Nancy Garner:
ReplyDelete"Thanks so much for this. Wealth inequality is one of the worst things in our world.
Thanks for reading and responding, Nancy. It was good to hear from you again. And thanks for highlighting the problem of wealth inequality, which perhaps I didn't emphasize sufficiently. But Collins is heavily involved in dealing with the huge problem of wealth inequality. He is the Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies where he co-edits Inequality.org.
DeleteLocal Thinking Friend Bob Southard shares these comments:
ReplyDelete"This is so important! Thx for sharing. You might want to check out my FB post this morning. I’m switching to a credit union instead of BoA who is currently paying $72M to Epstein victims with my money and I’m also cutting investments as I can from Schwab who supports Trump and pressing my finance people to rethink Schwab for their go to source. Financial changes sometimes require a slow process but can happen. An ethical vote once every year is much stronger if we are voting with dollars year round. Fair trade shopping, ethical investments, oversight in business practices, educated voters, healthy court systems, constitutional guards, independent media…so much plays in. Thx for leading the way!"
And then Ed Kail, another local Thinking Friend, wrote,
ReplyDelete"Thanks for the referral. This surely is one of the most crucial issues of our time. One can’t help but think that there will need to be a massive public movement to change the current dynamics that you describe. Where do you think it will come from?"