Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West

by Justin Farrell

For example, based on findings from experiments and brain imaging, there is a growing consensus among cognitive scientists that people with higher economic status are less empathetic than others.

Furthermore, one such study found that wealth can also inflate the wealthy person’s self-perception of how empathetic they are, “suggesting that those higher in status may not realize that they are actually lower in empathy.”

The Harvard sociologist Michèle Lamont has written extensively about the symbolic boundaries that separate groups of people, and the cultural processes by which these boundaries are drawn, resulting in the lumping and splitting of individuals into larger collectives. These boundaries are erected using myriad familiar social categories such as class, income, religion, race, ethnicity, and nationality. Individuals often self-identify with certain groups, but equally as often, individuals are identified by others as members of a particular group.

Importantly, I found that this stigma creates a pervasive sense of anxiety among the ultra-wealthy about the extent to which they are viewed as deserving, virtuous, and authentic people.

In interviews, they expressed a sense that they were not recognized by the nonwealthy as legitimate members of the community, in large part because they had been wrongly stereotyped and stigmatized by the media and politicians.

Most talk of careers, social status, or wealth is reserved for their ultra-wealthy peers. But when it comes to the locals from whom they seek recognition, they mask their social identity by avoiding talk of wealth, inequality, or politics. Instead, they stick to their preferred topic: no matter how much they make, everyone is here because of their shared love of natural beauty and small-town character.

Deep down, there is a sense that this is how life should be: working to live, rather than living to work. Of course, the irony of this conceit is that despite the fact that they live in the nation’s richest community, the people being romanticized are hardly able to live on their meager wages, and the ultra-wealthy are not actually interested in working these low-paying jobs.

Here, we return to Claire Drury, the nonwealthy Teton County resident who sarcastically remarked that the ultra-wealthy truly believe they are befriending the common folks. In another conversation, Claire remarked that the notion makes her “cringe” and questioned whether “going out for a beer with the guy who is doing the finishing work on your house” qualifies as genuine friendship, especially because money always seems to be involved.

Thus, the second way the ultra-wealthy seek to attain normalcy, which goes hand in hand with making friends in low places, is to disguise their wealth by curating a personal appearance centered on rural Western working-class attire, which distances them from the stigmas associated with having money and reduces the social and symbolic distance between themselves and the rest of the community.

Pulling up in a pickup truck or worn-out SUV at the local greasy-spoon cafe prevents one from sticking out as inauthentic (that is, rich), and additionally signals that one is conforming to the norms of modern rural Western transportation.

Kim offered her final assessment of her peers, based on her years growing up wealthy and her adult experiences in the West: “I think these [ultra-wealthy] people, it all becomes just about money to them. It all becomes about who they are and what they have. They lose total ability to see the world around them in a clear fashion. It doesn’t matter if they have jeans on!”

For example, how does their view of themselves as “normal” people actually suppress or mute feelings of guilt, or anesthetize their ability to recognize guilt?

Toward the tail end of our interview, Kari confessed rather profoundly: “I have to disclose to you that we do belong to that club. So we’re guilty of enjoying that.… Sometimes there are some people I don’t like to tell that we belong to it … we don’t always divulge it depending on who we’re talking to.… We were having dinner with neighbors [but] we just don’t like to divulge that we belong to that club because it’s very expensive to join it, we just don’t want to look like we’re privileged people.”

First, the ultra-wealthy do believe (like most Americans) that greed and elite affluence is morally precarious, and they vaguely perceive that they are judged and ethically rebuked by the rest of society. But, despite these vague perceptions, they were largely unaware or numb to the true intensity of these criticisms, and the extent to which these criticisms were present in their own community.

Unlike coastal activists railing against Wall Street, the people in the rural West are viewed differently. As one self-described “East Coast guy” put it, “I don’t think there’s a lot of income-redistribution feeling out here, like the riots down in Wall Street and so forth, or the 99 percent … but out here [in Wyoming] … there’s still that expectation that you’re gonna make your own way.”

According to Stan, nonwealthy residents such as the fishing guide he employs, often come to recognize that they are misguided in their criticism, and it easily washes away—or is “mitigated significantly” in the words of Stan—after recognizing that the millionaire has the same values as the low-wage worker.

Have you ever heard the really horrible expression about Jackson Hole, that it’s where the ‘billionaires chase the millionaires out of town’ and I think there’s a sense in Jackson Hole,

First, I found that the ultra-wealthy do, in a general sense, view greed and elite affluence as morally unsteady, and they sense this criticism from society, but their perception of this criticism and their feelings of guilt are vague and impersonal. Second, they address these criticisms, and reconcile any shallow sense of guilt, by transforming themselves into “normal” people with normal friends, as we saw in detail last chapter. But, third, despite their best intentions, this only creates a veneer—a candy-coated shell—that covers over the deeper criticisms that exist, blocking them from view, and perpetuating the problems that give rise to criticisms in the first place.

It is important to note that in this narrative of resentment versus hard work—as exemplified in the following quotes—the main character in the story tends to be the mythical “ski-bum,” who has chosen to live a life of poverty, giving up the modern allure of wealth for a life of adventure. While these types of people certainly exist (less and less so), the ultra-wealthy tended to view them as the face of inequality, used as a romanticized scapegoat to justify great wealth and great wealth inequality, and ultimately, to obscure the real face of people struggling in poverty. The regrettable irony is that these are communities of Spanish-speaking migrant workers, who rather than choosing to live a life of romanticized poverty are actually working as much or more than any of the ultra-wealthy respondents, holding down two and sometimes three jobs, and contradicting the popular notion that resentment is rooted in laziness or naked envy.

On occasion, a handful of respondents explained that the resentment is also rooted in a person’s natural intelligence. “You know, that’s just how it is, and some people are born smarter than other people and it’s not their fault … some people just don’t have the capability,” said one respondent. Similarly, a different interviewee stressed that, “Gene pool is another element of it.” According to another ultra-wealthy person, this can lead the nonwealthy to ask, “Why do you have it and why don’t I have it? The answer in many cases might be one worked hard and the other didn’t, or one has a much higher skill set and intelligence level than the other. That’s the way the world is, you know. Everyone is not created with equal faculties. Some resent that, some who are on the lower end of that spectrum resent it.”

One respondent—a CEO from the Midwest—made this same point crassly, explaining that the presence of extreme wealth disparity is “just the way life is. It’s reality.” But despite this harsh reality, he offers hope. “My answer to everything is jobs. We are giving you jobs, and you simply wouldn’t be here without us … we understand and believe that the noblest thing a person can do is to give people jobs … so while [the wealthy] may not really need a massage or spa things, or their lawn manicured, they do it because they know it provides work for people.”

Thus, those who criticize the wealthy are the “people that don’t know how much benefit someone with wealth is actually making in our society.” As evidence, he gives another personal example. “I pay a lot of money to a lot of people to do a lot of work. I’m able to do that because I’ve made a bunch of money, but it isn’t just sitting around. At all times, I’m figuring out how to make more, and improve things that are around.… I’d like [the world] to be better when I’m done than it was when I got here.” He laments that this positive perspective is “not the view that’s conveyed of wealthy people. You know the view that’s conveyed is somehow they’re all out there partying and drinking and, and just wasting money, and people that I know, none of them are like that. There are a lot of wealthy people, people that fly in on their own planes and that sort of thing but, gosh, it provides a tremendous amount of jobs and opportunities for people that are not rich, you know, the restaurants and the hotels and the other things that are there.”

Quite often, respondents expressed positive feelings about the ways their money flows down from great heights. Many also assumed that the working class shared these positive impressions. In the words of a recent transplant from Atlanta, “I think there’s some gratitude [from the nonwealthy] for the chance to work and get paid well and to have the consistency of the work.… I don’t sense resentment. I mean, the economy is doing well and they’re all getting paid.”

When the ultra-wealthy spoke of blame, or implied guilt, it was most often displaced onto their own kind, reserved for the rich who flaunt their money or act like entitled jerks. In their view, those who act in this way are shameful and should feel guilty, and they were quick to provide examples of their peers behaving in this way. By associating culpability with interpersonal interactions in the community (for example, not appearing to be modest or normal), it seemingly relieves them from guilt associated with the larger structural and impersonal effects of extreme wealth concentration of which they are a part. As long as they are “normal,” nice, and unostentatious, there is not much to feel bad about.

The good old days were when outwardly “you don’t know who has $5 in their pocket or $500 million … it used to be a community of millionaires, now it’s a community of billionaires.” This was according to another woman, who fears that out-of-touch billionaires are spoiling the relationship that millionaires like her have with the working class.

The nights provide little respite for Carmita, who with four of her own children to raise as a single mother, juggles a second job in the evenings to cover the costs of their small trailer, where they share living space with another family.

The most important finding in this chapter is that the immediacy of their day-to-day struggle, and the razor-thin margins they face, combined with lack of time for education or engagement, radically shapes their experiences with the ultra-wealthy, and renders them more positive than others we will encounter next chapter.

The idea that the amount of work you put in corresponds with the amount of wealth you acquire is symptomatic of a culture of meritocracy that has long permeated popular American culture at all class levels. The working poor, who are the most overworked and yet still the poorest people in the community, recited similar cultural scripts

In the words of one Mexican immigrant, “I have lived here for more than ten years, I came from Mexico with my family so that my children have a better future. I have two jobs and I barely afford my personal expenses, but I feel happy and calm as it is a town where there is much respect, tranquility, and I would like my children to have a better future.”

Today, eight out of ten (82 percent) Latin American–origin households in Teton County are cost-burdened, and a third of them are overcrowded.

Similarly, a single mom with two children under the age of thirteen told us about her three ongoing jobs, as a cashier in a gas station, food service worker for a hotel chain, and then last, a house cleaner for several wealthy families. All in a day’s work, yet she still struggles to cover rent.

Student homelessness is also a reality in Teton County. Another teacher notes that in “every level I had a homeless student … just picture parent-teacher conferences. One couple walks in with stilettos and Armani, and the next family walks in with no clothes.”

The working poor in this boat who are struggling mightily were much more likely to be positive about the wealthy because they perceive them to be the drivers of a successful economy and their only hope for survival. In short, they were grateful for the work, and when we asked them to reflect on the wealthy in this the richest and most unequal community in the nation, they often pulled from what the community leader quoted at the end of the introduction earlier called “talking scripts.”

One woman we interviewed, who had immigrated from Mexico to Teton County thirty years earlier, explains that “we have accepted the people that have a lot of money.… I do not criticize, they provide a lot of jobs when they build houses, construction, plumbing, air condition.” She admits that, “some people complain that we have a lot of millionaires, but they also create jobs and donate a lot.”

A younger woman we interviewed had received scholarships from a wealthy family. “I went to school here all the way to high school, and there I met people that give scholarships, and they don’t have to do it, they just want to see Jackson students have other opportunities and advance their career.” Excitedly, she tells us that she “met them, even after I received the help, they still check on me and ask how I am doing. It is very beautiful.”

The incredible day-to-day stress of living in poverty, being overworked, fearing eviction, experiencing ethnic discrimination, and seeing the cost of living continually skyrocket might tend to make some people jealous or resentful of neighbors who have more money than they’ll ever be able to spend, and plenty of free time to go along with it. Surely, it must be difficult for people like Carmita or Miguel or others in this chapter, waking up every morning on the floor of a shared trailer or motel room, to drive to work for a family at their sprawling $20 million property, and then only to head home in the evening to your children, and then leave again for your second minimum wage shift at the gas station or grocery story. It is reasonable to assume that for any of us, negative feelings might fester—that the mind might wander toward thoughts of envy. On paper, at least, we might assume that the enormity of the gap between these two types of families might breed resentment or jealousy, if not directed at the individual wealthy people themselves, at least at the hand you’ve been dealt or the systems in society that enable it. Yet, this is not the reality on the ground, and the interviews with people like Carmita, Miguel, Carlota, Lolita, and the many others, tell a much different story—one that tends to be more positive because they do not have time to attend informative civic events, participate in regular in-depth discussions over these issues, or have the privilege of forma...

A diversity of voices are now being heard, in contrast to how things used to be when—in the words of one Latino construction worker we interviewed—“Sixty-year-old rich white guys with lots of money can go to those [civic and political meetings] because they’re not going to their job, and already own their third home here, and they can get up and complain about things. And that kind of creates an unlevel playing field to some degree.”

She continues, giving an example that starkly illustrates what she sees as the moral plight of the community, and the living laboratory of extreme wealth disparity that it has become.” It is very sad to see rich people with five, six, eight bedrooms and only their dogs live there, and [at the same time] there are poor families with four, six people that don’t have a house to live in, and then they have the power to increase rents and kick you out because they are going to rent to someone that has more money.”

“You’re not actually doing anything for the environment. You’re destroying the environment, but you feel good about it … and being one with nature and all this stuff, but then at the end of the day the one thing that I don’t see progressive politics doing is ever giving up anything of its own, ceding power or ceding resources or wealth, and at the end of the day that’s what has to happen if you want to have social justice.”

And another critic, Antonio Galarraga, a landscaper in his early thirties, has noticed that, to the dismay of himself and his family, who have struggled in recent years, the ultra-wealthy tend to be more generous to environmental conservation rather than “human” conservation. He, like so many other people, view this as a grave hypocrisy that has great consequence for suffering people, and the planet: [The ultra-wealthy] probably contribute quite a bit to conservation organizations that do things, and they certainly seem to be doing more of that anecdotally than to human conservation. But, on the other hand that’s a very localized effect … but probably more impactful is, leaving aside, that they’re flying in jets and driving around in Escalades and stuff. They are mostly supportive of the status quo and the status quo is planetary destruction. I mean that’s where we’re headed, and so they’ve got all of the power and all of the political power, and at a minimum … they’re not doing anything about it, and they’re the ones who can.

Knowing that the wealthy live on expansive properties spread out through the valley, he suggests “having people live close in a community is obviously going to reduce greenhouse gas, which is our biggest environmental threat at the moment.” Continuing, he further highlights the hypocrisy he sees among the rich, “if you’re talking about conservation in the environment and yet you’re taking actions that are increasing the greenhouse gases, you’re just full of shit.” He concludes, “it just doesn’t make any sense to me. I mean, why talk about conserving the environment for bears and moose if they’re all going to be dead in eighty years?”

Instead of relying on the voluntary generosity of caring people, she advocates for a state income tax. “If we had a reasonable sales tax or property tax, we would have so much more money coming in than has ever come in from these voluntary donations. So there’s this huge ‘pat ourselves on the back’ myth that we’re incredibly generous, and I just don’t think it is true.”

At times, Margarita holds out hope that the superabundance of money might find its way to organizations that need it, yet at the same time, she is wary that the money might come with strings attached. You know, the wealthy do give and support a lot of nonprofits that are doing good work … a lot of it is funding from philanthropists. I think that is very positive. The shadow side of that is that the donors have influence over what gets done, and so you see a lot of charity but very little justice.

We often had to dig deeper for more on this topic because it was so straightforwardly obvious that their answers were often terse. What else was there to say? The relationships were “mostly because of labor. You do something for me, and I pay you.… I don’t think there is any other relationship … that is the only relationship,” says one line cook. “The interactions between Latinos and wealthy people are by cleaning their houses,” says one housekeeper. Or, as another worker described it, the working poor “are essentially servants … that’s the relationship. I don’t know if there’s any other one.”

One gentleman who works at the airport explained to us that “there just seems to be no self-awareness among a lot of [wealthy] people that right down the road there’s like thirty trailers with fifteen people living in them, sleeping in shifts.” Part of the problem, he says, is that in Teton County, the wealthy “don’t want to see discomfort … people move here because they want comfort—and probably more mental comfort and mental peace more than anything—but poor people shatter that.”

Another woman, who has been living here for nearly two decades with her two children and her husband, similarly describes the racial and ethnic barriers to community integration. “No, I don’t feel like part of the community. When you are Hispanic, you are not included. As Hispanic, you can’t be included, or the activities are very expensive and you cannot do them.”

As one young woman put it, “I see a lot of discrimination toward Mexicans. I went and applied two years ago to be a receptionist at the [ultra-elite hotel name redacted] and they just laughed at me, and I’m just like, ‘Excuse me, I have education. Excuse me, I am well suited for this. I have amazing customer service.… I am well with technology.’ ” She describes her repeated struggles to get a foot in the door, especially in these elite spaces that can equate environmental purity with whiteness.5 “A lot of times when I went to apply … they would be like, ‘We don’t hire illegal immigrants.’ I’m just like, ‘I have papers.’ So I feel like a lot of places just look down upon a lot of Mexicans … that we’re all illegal … that we are not smart … that we are not educated … and that we’re kind of just work machines.”

This all baffled one respondent, because the ultra-wealthy people he’s encountered do a lot of international travel, and speak about how much they love the locals in places like Mexico, South America, Spain, and elsewhere. They love these cultures and people they encounter, so why don’t they help their neighbors here in Teton County who came from these same places? “I think it’s probably racial bias,” he says. “I mean, probably, because it can’t be just culture, because I know [wealthy] people that go to South America and hang out in Peru for a month and talk so much about how ‘I met so many cool people in South America,’ and then they come back here and there’s no interest.”

Second, and perhaps more novel and interesting, is that a person “deserves” their wealth only if they fulfill the moral obligation that comes with having it: “People that are wealthy and honest do deserve their wealth, but if you are rich because you paid your employees five dollars an hour, and you are now a rich millionaire, that is not morally correct.” “They contract people and manage money and they avoid taxes. They don’t pay well in big hotel corporations, and they are squeezing the most out of their workers.”

Other people were more deliberate, pointing out how the wealthy continue to take advantage of the desperation wrought by wealth inequality and by the fact that many of the working poor are vulnerable immigrants. This theme was expressed by another construction worker in his thirties, who also shares a home with a few other families, and has really struggled in recent years. “When [the wealthy] see the desperation of the Hispanics to get a job, they offer you a lower wage. They should pay you better, but they take advantage of this, and this affects your [pocketbook], so jobs that should pay higher, don’t. And this affects you a lot.”