Born to Rule: Carl Rhodes on the Myths of the Good Billionaire and How We’re All Paying

Today’s guest is Professor Carl Rhodes. It’s new book season at the moment and Carl’s latest offering is titled Stinking Rich - The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire. This is his latest work, coming after previous titles such as Woke Capitalism; How Corporate Morality is Sabotaging Democracy and CEO Society: The Corporate Takeover of Everyday Life. Carl is also the Dean of the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, but he’s also held professorships at Swansea University, The University of Leicester and Macquarie University. His career in the private sector involved senior positions at AGL, Lend Lease, Citibank and The Boston Consulting Group. His experience across business and academia allows Carl to have a unique and deeply experienced view on what make companies tick, how economic structures reinforce capitalist priorities to the detriment of a just society, and unpack and be clear on the role of governments and businesses in a western world where those roles are increasingly unclear and uncertain.

Stinking Rich is a brilliant book. I loved reading it in preparation for this conversation and came away informed, hopeful, appalled and fearful. In a context where the rich are getting richer at faster rates, and the billionaire - from Musk to Gates to Rinehart to Cannon-Brooks - their everyday-ness in our culture is overt. Carl’s book pulls back the curtain on the archetypes and drivers of the very very very rich, and how their access, influence and power is distorting democracy for the benefit of the few. It’s easy to malign capitalist structures without deeply appreciating their origins and ontologies, as well as the mechanics and examples of how wealth becomes might. This book was illuminating for me in how it examined and exhibited the runaway authority billionaires have over our everyday lives in everything from medicine and health to climate action to politics and government decision making.

Stinking Rich - The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire - like all of Carl’s work - is a message about the dangerous path our society is on. Co-opted by rich vested interests and often outside the view of the public, this conversation illuminates what we all need to know and actively work to slow, stop and reverse.

Perfect imperfection is about the idea that progress is what matters, that perfectionism is a trap of over thinking and a desire for control. Surrendering to what is better and acknowledging perfection is nothing but a myth is something I try to work on daily. After speaking with Carl and his call for new political imaginations that deliver economic justice and equality, this quote from Marilyn Monroe struck me as a relevant and a call to action for all of us: “Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius. It is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”

Til next time, thanks for listening.

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