The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties

by Christopher Caldwell

At the time, the idea that anyone might look up to entrepreneurs and captains of industry sounded like a joke. If you asked before the Reagan administration who the greatest seers into the soul of mankind were, even a young man in business school would probably have replied: Poets. Or: Philosophers. The world’s moguls were unbalanced, insane, and unenviable. Who would want to be Howard Hughes or John Paul Getty? But in the 1980s, economic titans began to write autobiographies again, as if they had lessons to teach the public. They were mostly corporate executives, like Lee Iacocca and Jack Welch. One was a New York real estate developer who described his calling as “the art of the deal.” And some were bankers. Time magazine ran a notorious cover in February 1999 describing Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, his assistant, Lawrence Summers, and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan as the “Committee to Save the World.” Society took on a Roman aspect. The very rich were held to be cool (Steve Jobs), prophetic (George Soros), or saintly (Warren Buffett). Wealth has never been without its appeal and its power. But it was striking that, more than any generation for a century, and in sharp contrast to its own declared youthful values, the Baby Boom generation revered wealth.