As a land passionately devoted to free enterprise, the U.S. has always
been the best place for a man to make his million. Throughout its
history—from the days of the earliest Virginia planters to the postwar
bloom of electronics millionaires—the drive for fortune has been a
shaping influence and a productive force. The fabled 19th century
millionaires—John D. Rockefeller, Edward H. Harriman and Andrew
Carnegie—all began poor. Despite their often controversial actions,
they, like most American millionaires, basically enriched themselves by
enriching a growing nation.Lately, the belief has grown that it is no longer possible to become a
millionaire, that debilitating taxes, savage competition from big
corporations and the sating of consumer appetites have slammed the door
to great wealth. Wrong on all counts. The U.S. still offers countless
opportunities for the man who wants to accumulate a personal net worth
of $1,000,000 or more—and thousands seize them every year. The number
of U.S. millionaires, reports the Federal Reserve Board, has swelled
from 40,000 in 1958 to nearly 100,000 at present. How do they do it? In
a variety of individual ways, but their common denominator is that they
find an economic need and fill it.Insatiable Craving. Today's prospering capitalism creates enormous needs
and endless challenges. Economically and socially, the U.S. is the
world's most mobile nation: capital flows freely from lenders to
borrowers, workers shift from job to job, and venturesome entrepreneurs
jump quickly up the economic ladder. The changing trends of business,
science and demography provide the risktaker with ever fresh chances.
Technology's quantum leaps are opening new industries almost every
year—transistors, computers, lasers, masers, color TV. The shift of
the economy's vast weight from traditional heavy manufacturing into the
growth area of services is producing limitless openings for men with
ideas. So is the movement of the population: young marrieds are going
out to the suburbs, oldsters are coming back to the cities, Negroes are
moving North.As the population grows and shifts, its wants speed ahead. Americans
have an insatiable craving for improved goods and services, more
eagerly embrace new products than any other people. Their willingness
to buy almost anything that will amuse, uplift, beautify or offer
convenience is demonstrated by the marketplace successes of such things
as textured stockings, the electric carving knife, skate boards, diet
cola, shoe-shining machines and speed-reading courses. Getting backers
for a sound idea is no real problem; credit is cheaper and bankers more eager to lend in the U.S. than in
any other major nation.Compulsively Driven. In this dynamic and changing environment, the new
millionaires are quite unlike anything the nation has ever seen.
Compared with the gilded-age millionaires of a century ago, they are
harder-working, less flamboyant and more anonymous. They have not made
their fortunes in steel, oil, railroads and the other basic industries,
but in the frontier technologies, the newest services and even the
arts. They are an uncommonly talented lot: bright but not brilliant,
pragmatic, somewhat egotistical, compulsively driven to achievement.
