- Class Warfare.

RE · May 05, 2025, 06:20 PM

Once you have a guaranteed income of sufficient size without working where you can hang with age-mates from the same class at parties in NY, the Hamptons, etc, you get offered opportunities and can pitch ideas to other people with access to capital to invest. In his great novel Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson called it "Fuck You" money.

There's a good series on Prime called The Gilded Age about how this worked in the late 1800s during the Robber Baron era. It focuses on George Russell, a railroad and banking Tycoon and his family and the social circle in NYC and Newport in those years. It was very much the same in the 70s when I was at Columbia. I am sure it's the same today.

RE

- Class Warfare.

RE

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