For individual wealthy people, this simply isn’t true in their personal experience.
I mean, let’s imagine a car company.
The company provides products ostensibly geared at people, right? But where do they get all their components? One level down the supply chain, and you have a thousand smaller companies designing and building bits and pieces of cars. These are big enterprises full of workers, executives, etc. and their idea of a customer is some other massive business. Making a sale involves executives, lawyers, and some sales specialists sitting around a table at a steakhouse drinking Crystal and chatting about the merits of a third Ferrari.
Each level down the supply chain, it’s the same. Maybe the level of wealth varies, but all the people in the room (at least the ones who talk and aren’t the hired help) are rich.
And look, other than Tesla, a car company doesn’t sell to people either. It actually sells to dealerships, rental car companies, corporate and government fleets, and so on. Plus, these companies are huge: an individual executive or director is hardly going to deal with the hoi polloi in any business: they deal with other departments, directors, executives, etc. You know, other rich people.
This basic model is true everywhere. Does Google sell to people? Mostly, no. It sells to advertising departments, propaganda houses, etc. Do people at Google deal with customers? Mostly, no.
What about a department store? Corporate deals with supply chain issues, selecting / specifying products from suppliers, real estate, financing to cover variation in demand, and so on. The people who actually deal with customers? They’re the hoi polloi themselves: the hired help. People get rich in these organizations by positioning themselves against other rich people, making a case that they saved the company money, managing to squeeze a little more work for less pay out of the workers.
Actually dealing with the little people is a pretty small part of the economy, and actual rich people insulate themselves from it very well. Why would they think it really matters anymore?
