In the book, I had footnoted this claim to a 2011 Jane Mayer article in The New Yorker, in which she wrote that “three quarters of the spending by independent groups in North Carolina’s 2010 state races came from accounts linked to Pope. The total amount that Pope, his family, and groups backed by him spent on the twenty two races was $2.2 million.”

The distinction between funding from Pope himself and groups affiliated with him was important in the new world of campaign finance. Mayer’s article was one of the earliest exposés on the world of “dark money,” where wealthy individuals fund activities both directly and through nonprofit organizations that seek to influence the public. Worried that he would sue to stop the book over this distinction, Brookings agreed to put a paper insert in the book changing the wording “came from Pope” to “were associated with Pope.” That slight change allowed us to go forward with the publication, but the episode was a sobering reminder that rich people are vigilant about their press clippings and not afraid to pursue authors.

The day after publication, a different problem arose when The Wall Street Journal printed a review by billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins. It struck me as odd that the paper would choose a billionaire to review a book critical of billionaires, but Perkins had an even more glaring conflict of interest: My book specifically condemns an outrageous letter to the editor he wrote in the Journal in January, comparing criticism of the top 1 percent to Nazi attacks on Jews during Kristallnacht. (One commenter on the Journal’s site said having Perkins review my book was like having the wolf assess Little Red Riding Hood.)

Perkins’s review was filled with inaccuracies. In comparing my book to Piketty’s, he gave the wrong title for the latter, calling it Capital in the Twentieth Century. He also erroneously attributed support for a wealth tax to me, even though I don’t find the idea practical, nor do I see it as likely to be adopted any time soon. Most dismaying was his accusation that I used a “red-tinted magnifying glass” in my analysis. Having studied the Joseph McCarthy era, I knew what the choice of color meant.

But not all the reactions were hostile—balancing them was a poignant response from Jennifer Pritzker, whom I had highlighted as the first known transgender billionaire and whose leadership on transgender issues I applauded. She wrote that she understood why I had highlighted that aspect of her background and said she planned to buy copies of the book for her friends and family members. Yet something bothered her. I had described her as a lieutenant in the U.S. military, but she had been promoted to lieutenant colonel, a position of greater responsibility. She noted that she believed she was the only American billionaire who had spent most of her professional career in the military. I told her I did not want to short-change her life accomplishments, especially given the personal adversity she had encountered, and would recommend that the next printing of the book include the elevated title. With all the condemnation of their political activities, individual billionaires deserve credit for the public service they do.

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