unions
skilled workers +
path to citizenship
State issue
1
State issue
0
Support only for
7
skilled workers
Pro- life
1
Oppose same- sex
2
Decrease
0
marriage
immigration
Note: Statements about at least one issue were made by 29 billionaires out of the 100 billionaires we studied.
Entries are the number of billionaires who made one or more statements of a given type.
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who spoke out about immigration advocated the position— highly popular
among the American public— that immigration should be decreased.17
Some examples of what the billionaires had to say: On same- sex mar-
riage, Warren Buffett declared, “Certainly, our managers know how I
feel. I am 100 percent for full rights, in every respect, for gays and lesbians.”18 Similarly, eBay cofounder Pierre Omidyar strongly criticized
California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s support for the anti–
same- sex marriage Proposition 8.19 Mark Zuckerberg reacted to the Su-
preme Court’s decision to legalize same- sex marriage nationwide by stat-
ing, “Our country was founded on the promise that all people are created
equal, and today we took another step towards achieving that promise.”20
On abortion, Michael Bloomberg said, “I happen to be very much pro-
choice. I’m not in favor of abortion, but I do think it’s totally up to the woman’s right to choose.”21
Interestingly, some notable billionaires who— on economic issues—
are strongly conservative, espoused pro- choice views and/or pro– same- sex marriage views but also implied that such views are not particularly important to them. David Koch, for example, acknowledged to Barbara Wal-
ters that he supports both abortion rights and same- sex marriage, but
indicated that those issues do not factor into his decisions to support candidates. Walters asked, “You support gay rights. You support a woman’s
right to choose. But conservative candidates you support, many of them,
do not have those views.” Koch replied by agreeing with Walters but im-
mediately shifting to economic issues, saying, “That’s their problem. I do have those views. What I want these candidates to do is to support a balanced budget. I’m very worried that if the budget is not balanced that
inflation could occur and the economy of our country could suffer terri-
bly.”22 Somewhat similarly, Sheldon Adelson said to the Wall Street Journal that, on abortion, “We’re [he and his wife] pro- abortion rights” but indicated that he continues to support the GOP, because of its anti- union policies, which are apparently much more important to him.23
On immigration, billionaires who spoke out often did so from a business-
oriented perspective. For example, former Microsoft CEO and current
NBA basketball team owner Steve Ballmer said, “It does get complicated
in the US because of broader immigration issues, particularly immigration from Mexico. The two— visas for skilled workers and illegal immigrants—
have nothing to do with each other, but politically, they probably need to be addressed together. We are certainly prepared to participate in a discussion for a broader immigration reform, which allows us to bring in high- tech
keeping quiet on social issues
87
talent.”24 Similarly, Leonard Lauder of cosmetics giant Estée Lauder wrote in a Wall Street Journal op- ed, “Our visa system makes it extremely difficult for anyone with a great business idea to come here and stay. Our universities are teaching many more brilliant young foreigners, yet our immigra-
tion system often prevents them from remaining here after graduating. We
should be creating incentives and opportunities for foreign students to remain in the United States— especially those in critical fields like science, engineering, and technology.”
Even most of the billionaires who support increased immigration more
broadly (that is, beyond just programs like the H- 1B visa that targets
specialty occupations) spoke about immigration in economic terms. For
example, Bloomberg, an immigration proponent, framed his support for
the DREAM Act and his opposition to deportations by saying, “Ending
deportations of innocent young people who have the potential to drive
tomorrow’s economy is long overdue, as are many common- sense reforms
needed to center our immigration policy around our economic needs.”25
Considering all three social issues, billionaires’ statements, as well as their policy- specific actions, generally accord with evidence from various sources that affluent Americans— though mostly economically conservative— tend to be socially liberal.26 That is, combining the evidence here of billionaires’ social liberalism with the evidence in chapter 2 of their wide-spread economic conservatism, many billionaires appear to be libertarians.
Of course that does not mean that the billionaires treat social and eco-
nomic issues as equally important. Billionaires’ record of heavy contri-
butions to Republican candidates (most of whom have, in recent years,
been conservative on social as well as economic issues) suggests that many billionaires may adopt David Koch’s position: they may swallow Republicans’ social conservatism for the sake of the economic conservatism that
they consider more vital.
A complete listing of our one hundred billionaires, together with the
number and direction of statements and actions (if any) by each billion-
aire concerning each social issue, is given in appendix 4.
Harmony between Talk and Action
In chapter 2 we described a rather sharp contrast between the public statements made by a few of the wealthiest billionaires about taxes and Social Security (which tended to be moderate or liberal) and the policy- related actions of other billionaires, which were overwhelmingly conservative.
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This played an important part in our conclusion that many billionaires
engage in stealth politics: they quietly work for policies that are quite unpopular with the general public, while deliberately saying little or nothing in public about the specifics of those policies.
Not so with social issues. On policies concerning abortion, same- sex
marriage and immigration, both the statements and (except for abortion)
the policy- related actions of billionaires tilted strongly in the same direction: a liberal or libertarian direction. This consistency largely carries through to the individual level. Many of the same billionaires who spoke
out on these issues also took actions related to them, and their talk and action generally went in the same direction. Of the seven billionaires who both talked and acted on same- sex marriage, for example, six consistently expressed support, and one consistently expressed opposition. All seven
billionaires who both talked and acted on immigration consistently fa-
vored increasing immigration levels, either for skilled workers only or in general. Only two billionaires— David Koch and Harold Simmons— were
inconsistent, in both cases concerning abortion. (Both were pro- choice in rhetoric but antiabortion in action; see appendix 4.)
This is one key reason why we judge the wealthiest one hundred bil-
lionaires to be less stealthy on social issues than on taxes and Social Security. Another reason is that their policy- related actions (with the exception of immigration, to be discussed below) do not app
ear to be badly
out of harmony with the views of majorities of the American public. Still another reason is that on the tax and Social Security issues, regression
analyses concerning the direction of policy- related actions (with interaction terms for speech or silence) indicated that non speakers— as opposed to speakers— took distinctly more conservative, more unpopular actions,
which they had incentives to conceal.27 When we conducted parallel re-
gression analyses for social issues, we found no such evidence.
Which Billionaires Speak and Act on Social Issues?
Wealth and Prominence
Even a cursory glance at appendix 4, which arrays our billionaires in de-
scending order of their net worth, reveals that publicly reported statements and actions related to social issues tended to be most common among the
very wealthiest billionaires. To put this more precisely: the simple correlation between number of statements a billionaire made (summed across all
keeping quiet on social issues
89
table 4.4 Correlations of Wealth and Visibility with Statements and
Actions on Social Issues
Wealth
Visibility
Statements
Total
0.37
0.49
Abortion
0.19
0.20
Same- Sex Marriage
0.27
0.34
Immigration
0.39
0.55
Actions
Total Action Index
0.32
0.56
Abortion
0.29
0.19
Same- Sex Marriage
0.17
0.38
Immigration
0.21
0.52
three sets of issues) and the magnitude of his or her wealth (the log of the total amount) is a substantial and highly significant 0.37. Similarly, the correlation between the number of social issues on which a billionaire took
a policy- related action and the magnitude of that billionaire’s wealth is a solid 0.32 (see table 4.4).
This may not seem at all surprising: the very wealthiest billionaires also tend to be the most prominent, the most reported on. No doubt they are
pestered most insistently for quotes and scrutinized most closely for ac-
tions, since they are most likely to be of interest to broad audiences.
In order to check whether prominence rather than wealth is in fact
the key factor, we devised a simple measure of visibility: we recorded the number of hits in Google News for a search of a billionaire’s name plus
the name of the main business from which his or her wealth was derived.
We believe this to be a generally reliable (though rather blunt) instrument for measuring public visibility. We then used the logarithm of this variable (a measure of the magnitude of visibility) to estimate statistical relationships. By that measure, prominence or visibility is related even more closely than wealth to the number of statements made and actions taken
concerning social issues. For total statements and total actions across all three issues, the correlation coefficients are a robust 0.49 and 0.56, respectively (see table 4.4).
The best test involves multivariate analysis. In regression analyses pre-
dicting the total number of statements and the total number of policy-
focused actions that each billionaire took, by (at the same time) both the billionaire’s wealth and his or her visibility, the visibility coefficients were highly significant (at the p < .001 level), but the wealth coefficients were
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nonsignificant even at the p < .05 level.28 This indicates that celebrity, in the sense of prominence or visibility (affected, of course, by wealth)—
more than wealth per se— directly affects how many statements and ac-
tions each billionaire takes on social issues.
We now turn to other factors that may affect the number and direc-
tion of statements and policy- related actions for each one of our three
sets of issues: abortion, same- sex marriage, and— of particular interest—
immigration, which in important respects differs from the others.
Talking and Acting on Abortion
As we have seen, only eight billionaires made public statements about
abortion. (As table 4.4 indicates, there was a tendency— though not as
strong a tendency as on other issues— for wealthier billionaires to make
those statements.) We also saw in table 4.3 that most of these statements were pro- choice. The small number of statements, and the meager variation in direction, meant that it was impossible to sort out statistically the impact of various hypothesized factors on either the number or the direction of abortion statements. Numerous regression analyses failed to pro-
duce any statistically significant coefficients. For abortion statements, we were simply unable to test our expectation that (controlling for wealth or visibility), concerning heirs29 and consumer- facing business, people30 are less likely to speak out.
Much the same thing is true of abortion policy- related actions, which were taken by only eight billionaires. Here at least there was more variation in direction, with four billionaires taking pro- life actions and four taking pro-choice actions. But our one apparently productive regression analysis was almost certainly an artifact.31 We cannot say anything with confidence except that the most highly visible billionaires are somewhat more likely to make statements and take actions related to abortion policy.
Same- Sex Marriage
We can say somewhat more about who spoke out or took action on same- sex
marriage, where more billionaires made statements (fifteen did so) and/or took policy- specific actions (sixteen did so— see tables 4.1 and 4.3). Again the wealthiest billionaires spoke out most: the number of statements made tended to rise with level of wealth and especially with level of visibility.
When both variables were included in the same regression, the coefficient
keeping quiet on social issues
91
table 4.5 Regression Predicting Number of Same- Sex Marriage Statements B (SE)
t- Value
Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)
– 0.7304 (0.3998)*
– 1.83
0.0708
Wealth
0.0099 (0.0116)**
0.85
0.0370
Consumer Facing
– 0.4212 (0.2572)
– 1.64
0.1049
Heir
0.1144 (0.2844)
0.40
0.6883
Log(Visibility)
2.69
0.0084
* p < .1.
** p < .05.
*** p < .01.
Note: Residual standard error: 1.14 on 95 DF; multiple R- squared: 0.1509; adjusted R- squared: 0.1151; F- statistic: 4.22 on 4 and 95 DF; p- value: .003455.
for wealth dropped to less than half the value it had had by itself, though it remained barely statistically significant at the p < .05 level (see table 4.5).32
Here we were able to test our expectation that heirs and billionaires
with consumer- facing businesses tend (other factors being equal) to make fewer public statements. The coefficient for consumer- facing did not quite reach statistical significance according to standard criteria, but it was substantial and in the expected direction, indicating that being in a consumer-facing business may indeed tend to lead billionaires to be quieter in public about controversial policy issues. There was no sign at all in this regression that inheritors of wealth are more reluctant to speak out about public policy (a tiny coefficient with the “wrong” sign). But of course one might argue that the effect
s of being an heir work through a general aversion to visibility, which is accounted for here.33 There is indeed evidence that some inheritors of great wealth, like the Mars candy family, work hard to avoid publicity of almost any kind. (Most members of the Mars family re-fuse to even be photographed, and the company’s headquarters are located
in an unmarked brick building.)34
We also analyzed same- sex- marriage- related actions. As table 4.6
shows, billionaires who spoke about same- sex marriage were moderately
but significantly more likely to act in a pro– same- sex- marriage direction.
This is evidence against the applicability of stealth politics; in contrast to economic issues, billionaires who speak on this key social issue are also likely to act— and are likely to act in ways consistent with their speech.
Furthermore, wealthier billionaires are more likely to have contrib-
uted money in support of same- sex marriage. In contrast to some other
results in this chapter, auxiliary regression analysis showed that the effects of wealth are not replaced by visibility on the issue of same- sex marriage.
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table 4.6 Regression Predicting Direction of Nonstatement Actions on Same- Sex Marriage B (SE)
t- Value
Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)
0.0857 (0.0754)
1.14
0.2586
Makes at Least One Relevant Statement
– 0.6683 (0.2617)**
– 2.55
0.0123
Consumer Facing
– 0.0463 (0.0874)
– 0.53
0.5978
Heir
0.0232 (0.0875)
0.27
0.7914
Wealth
– 0.0089 (0.0038)**
– 2.32
0.0225
At Least One Statement × Consumer Facing
0.2983 (0.2436)
1.23
0.2238
At Least One Statement × Heir
0.2728 (0.3139)
0.87
0.3871
At Least One Statement × Wealth
0.0121 (0.0085)
1.42
0.1591
** p < .05.
Note: Residual standard error: 0.3747 on 92 DF; multiple R- squared: 0.1589; adjusted R- squared: 0.09493; F-statistic: 2.483 on 7 and 92 DF; p- value: .02214.
Thus, the resource effect here is not merely a proxy for celebrity. Perhaps billionaires at all wealth levels support same- sex marriage at roughly the same levels, but the wealthiest billionaires have the most money to contribute to that cause.