The Wolf of Wall Street and Economic Nihilism

Chapter 12 The Wolf of Wall Street and Economic Nihilism

D. Stephen Long

In his Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French Economist Thomas Piketty states that income inequality is too important to be left to the economists.1 He writes,

To be sure, it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of the intuitive knowledge that everyone acquires about contemporary wealth and income levels, even in the absence of any theoretical framework or statistical analysis. Film and literature, nineteenth century novels especially, are full of detailed information about the relative wealth and living standards of different social groups, and especially about the deep struc- tures of inequality, the way it is justified, and its impact on individual lives.2

Piketty turns to the elegant novels of Jane Austen and Honoré de Balzac for detailed information about nineteenth-century inequality. Scorsese turns to Jordan Belfort’s inelegant The Wolf of Wall Street to show us something similar about inequality in the twenty-first century. Neither Scorsese nor Belfort have the statistical and longitudinal analysis present in Piketty’s monumental work, but Piketty’s work on inequality helps us understand how Belfort’s brokerage firm, and its nihilistic practices, are not only possible but all too predictable. Few people will wade through Piketty’s massive tome with its charts, statistics, fundamental laws, and generalized pre- dictions. Many might sit down to view Scorsese’s film to be entertained and discover something similar to what Piketty has shown us. Simon Kuznets was wrong. Markets seldom self-regulate. Wealth is not an indicator of merit, and those willing to affirm a world where nothing matters but power may very well be the ones most likely to earn unfathomable income from capital built up at the expense of others.

1 This chapter is a revised version of “Will Power Set You Free?” in D. Stephen Long, Truth- Telling in a post-Truth World (Nashville: Foundery Books, 2019). 2 Piketty, Thomas, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge: Belknap, 2014), 2.

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Scorsese’s work is neither moralistic nor heavy-handed. He simply shows the excess of economic nihilism without ethical commentary, but manifesting that excess is itself an ethical achievement that preoccupied Scorsese since at least Mean Streets. Reflecting on that movie some years after he wrote, “Mean Streets dealt with the American Dream, according to which everybody thinks they can get rich quick, and if they can’t do it by legal means they’ll do it by illegal ones. That disruption of values is no different today and I’m interested in making a couple more pictures on the same theme.”3 The Wolf of Wall Street shows us the “disruption of values” that the American Dream can take. The opening scene in the film, taken directly from Belfort’s memoirs (it would be a mistake to call them a confession; there is little remorse shown in this disturbing tale of greed and excess), captures well the utter nihilism to which Belfort’s fabricated Stratton Oakmont firm had descended. To encourage his employees, Belfort and the upper administration decided to have a contest tossing “midgets” wrapped in Velcro toward a Velcro bullseye. For Belfort, these people are less than human. In his autobiography, he admits that he has some reservations about tossing midgets, but his reservations are not based on ethical considerations. It is that they are “pound for pound … stronger than grizzly bears.” Before he agrees to this dehumanizing act, only one of many that oc- curred daily at Stratton Oakmont including the regular degradation of women, he wants a “game warden who can rein in the little critter if he should go off the deep end.”4 Even after his conviction for money laundering, Belfort’s seems incapable of acknowledging the humanity of those he abused, swindled, or betrayed. He always had, and still seems to have, an economic rationale for his behavior. What is most disturbing about his economic nihilism is that no ra- tional justification is necessary in the first place. One of his top administrators tells him that if there is negative press, they can justify the midget throwing event by telling the public that they are increasing job opportunities for the “less fortunate.” But, says the administrator, they most likely will never need to justify it because “no one’ll give a shit.” “No one’ll give a shit.” However inelegant, it explains the cultural context that made Belfort and his enterprises possible. To put it in philosophical terms, they traded on nihilism, the assumption that laudatory ideas such as truth or goodness or beauty had already devalued themselves and would have little to no bearing upon their actions. Nietzsche recognized and lamented that with nihilism the “beyond” would disappear in art. He wrote, “With profound sorrow one admits to oneself that, in their highest flights, the artists of all ages have

3 David Thompson and Ian Christie, eds., Scorsese on Scorsese (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1989), 47. 4 Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street (New York: Bantam Books, 2008), 67.