The Noblesse Oblige of Taylor Swift

Not many truckers are cut bonus checks of 100k; maybe the impetus behind this gesture could be a wake up call to the trucking industry.

Last week the internet was alive with news that pop superstar Taylor Swift had issued massive bonuses to the crew on her “Eras” Tour, including bonuses issued to the drivers hauling it all over North America in the amount of $100,000.

You read that correctly - that’s ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars.

Not bad scratch for a tour which started in March and is scheduled to end this month in Los Angeles. That’s roughly 20k a month bonus, or 5k a week for the duration of the tour … which is probably at least double what those drivers salaries were to begin with, maybe even more.

You can read more about this very generous announcement at USA Today, TMZ, The LA Times, or watch my buddy Timothy Dooner over at FreightWaves discuss the matter on his show What The Truck?

The tour itself is said to have grossed over a billion dollars, and is being billed as the highest grossing concert tour ever.

(Special bonus on this episode of WTT? - If you watch til about 10 minutes and 30 seconds in, you will see good friend and fellow Substacker Ross Kennedy, host of the Fortis Analysis Substack and former guest on the Voice Of GO(r)D podcast, which you can listen to here.)



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It’s not often that truck drivers ever see bonuses; it’s the kind of job that operates on the margins, and is, in the words of many, ‘a thankless job.’ The average wage of a long haul trucker in the United States in 2021 was roughly $48,000/year, per the Bureau of Labor Satistics, so this bonus basically doubled the average truckers salary.

In my long career on the road, I’ve only ever collected a $2000 safety bonus after completing Ice Road seasons without incident; Christmas Bonuses, once a fairly common fixture for truckers and other members of the working class, are now a distant memory for many, myself included.

Obviously, Ms Swift is awash in cash and can afford a level of generosity not possible for most trucking companies. That said, she did take the time to write a personally signed letter to every driver on the tour, per the USA Today article linked above -

Mike Scherkenbach, the CEO of Shomotion, told USA TODAY that the drivers were called into a production meeting where they assumed the topic of conversation would be the tour schedule …

Instead, the drivers were surprised by Swift's father, Scott Swift.

"Scott gave a short speech and said how much he appreciated the service and what they've done for the tour for the last 24 weeks," Scherkenbach said. "They've been out there nonstop, the men and women that drive for us have been away from their families for 24 weeks."

Then, each driver was given a letter that the singer had handwritten and addressed to the individual thanking them for their service during the tour.

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”Noblesse Oblige” is French for ‘the obligations of nobles’, and for those of you who haven’t heard it before, the Wikipedia entry gives a fairly concise definition.

Noblesse oblige is generally used to imply that wealth, power, and prestige come with responsibilities. In ethical discussion, the term is sometimes used to summarize a moral economy wherein privilege must be balanced by duty towards those who lack such privilege or who cannot perform such duty. Recently, it has been used to refer to public responsibilities of the rich, famous and powerful, notably to provide good examples of behaviour or exceed minimal standards of decency. It has also been used to describe a person taking the blame for something in order to solve an issue or save someone else.

Given the gross income disparities which exist in America, and the unprecedented upward transfer of wealth witnessed during the Wuhan Plague Overreaction (funny how the left has been fairly mute on this, much like they have been mute or hypocritical on so many other things they once ostensibly stood for) to see someone like Taylor Swift be so generous to those whom helped her create this wealth is shocking, if only because we have been conditioned over the decades to just accept lower wages, a reduced standard of living, and the next generation to be the first in modern history to have less opportunity and wealth than those previous.

Most truckers are modest, no-nonsense types, who just want to be left alone, get their jobs done, and hopefully provide for their families with a minimum of fuss. I don’t think many of us expect much out of anyone, and given the forces which are arrayed against us, as well as current economic conditions, just keeping our jobs would be bonus enough for us.

Yet this gift to her drivers by Swift should beg the question, why can’t other owners and managers express gratitude in another way, if bonuses of any kind are out of the question?

Many parts of the trucking industry are owned, managed, and regulated, by a particular caste of people; some might call them the professional managerial elite, or maybe just the bourgeoise. Perhaps these people don’t see themselves as nobility, but many of them are definitely within the realm of ‘minor nobility’, and I would suggest Taylor Swift’s bonus checks should give them pause to think about how they treat the people farther down the food chain, you know, those who produce (and deliver) the actual food.

Maybe, just maybe, it would be bonus enough to pay truckers overtime like every other worker is paid, or perhaps do something about the most important commodity any human has, and stop wasting so much of our time. Maybe they could talk to their friends in government, and stop making us compete against indentured servants from other countries. Maybe they could let us use the bathroom, or let us park somewhere for the night?


As you can see, there’s quite a few issues our ‘nobles’ could fix up for us, a few policy changes which would make our lives so much better, and without having to cut us a check for 100k.

In Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty Three, however, it appears the nobility seem only obliged to pay for themselves and their children to go to very expensive concerts.