I think there is a real difference between France as a nation creating a marvelous aesthetic object, and a handful of billionaires doing so. In the first case t

I think there is a real difference between France as a nation creating a marvelous aesthetic object, and a handful of billionaires doing so. In the first case the focus isn't on the individual but the collective, and ideally on its better qualities. In the second, it is necessarily on the individuals, whose wealth and status exists at the expense of that of most everyone else. One is the correlate of democracy; the other is more reminiscent of despotism. That's my view, anyway.