The 'American Gentry' of Millionaire Business Owners Wields Outsized, Underexamined Economic and Political Power
Source: Daniel Colligan. "American Capitalism Isn’t Just Billionaires." October 1, 2026. jacobin.com
The Gist
This article argues that while the media and the Left focus on billionaires, there's an even bigger group of rich Americans—owners of businesses like auto dealerships, beer distributorships, and dental practices—who together control far more wealth than all the billionaires combined. These 'Main Street Millionaires' use favorable tax laws, political influence, and anticompetitive regulations to grow their fortunes, often at the expense of workers and consumers, and they tend to push right-wing political agendas.
Conclusion
The Left should not focus solely on billionaires but must also analyze the much larger, more geographically dispersed class of 'Main Street Millionaire' pass-through business owners, since they collectively control vast wealth and use it to advance anticompetitive, anti-worker, and right-wing political ends.
Premises
- Zidar and Zwick's research shows roughly three million 'Main Street Millionaire' households (those with $5M+ in wealth who own private businesses) collectively hold about $55 trillion—thirteen times the combined wealth of the Forbes 400.
- Tax code changes since the 1986 Tax Reform Act, partly lobbied for by business owners themselves, made the pass-through business structure extremely profitable, with 41% of the top 1%'s income share increase since 1980 attributable to pass-through income.
- Smaller pass-through businesses exploit legal thresholds to avoid labor protections (FMLA, ADA, WARN Act, ACA mandates) and are harder to unionize, squeezing workers.
- Main Street Millionaires are disproportionately represented in politics (nearly a quarter of Congress, over 40% of state legislators, a third of mayoral candidates), giving them direct incentive and power to shape policy in their favor.
- These capitalists have secured anticompetitive protections across industries (auto dealer franchise laws, beer distribution laws, realtor information restrictions, medical residency caps) that raise consumer costs and protect their market positions.
- Pass-through owners are responsible for nearly half of the $600 billion annual federal tax gap, and new loopholes (e.g., shrinking estate taxes) continue to benefit them disproportionately.
- MSMs skew politically conservative and have funded prominent right-wing political figures and causes (e.g., the Uihleins, John McCain's campaign via his wife's beer distribution wealth).
Assumptions
- Economic and political power scales meaningfully with wealth concentration, such that $55 trillion among millions of owners constitutes a comparably significant force to billionaire wealth.
- Political donations and officeholding by business owners reliably translate into policy outcomes favorable to their class interests.
- The current regulatory and tax advantages enjoyed by small-to-medium pass-through businesses are illegitimate or harmful rather than reasonable accommodations for smaller enterprises.
- Correlation between MSM political activity and conservative policy outcomes indicates causation (that MSMs are driving rather than merely aligning with conservative politics).
- The Left's current strategic focus on billionaires comes at the analytical and political expense of understanding this broader capitalist class.