True Believer

Much of the future of western democratic capitalism depends on resolving the question of whether average and lower income people would rather see CEOs/rich people making less even if it meant that they themselves would make less. Is it an issue of ‘fairness’, or a misguided belief that the excesses paid to the rich can be redistributed to the rest of society with no negative economic consequences? All objective historical evidence supports the politically incorrect likelihood that within any given country, the more rich people there are and the more they make, the more middle class people there are and the fewer poor there are? Who would argue that in countries where there are very few or no rich people there inevitably follows wider spread poverty and little or no middle class. So why wouldn’t the opposite be true?

But then again, a large percentage of Americans also believe that it is inherently wrong for the U.S. to consume 25% of the world’s resources. Do these same people by in large believe that if we, (the rich USA), consumed less that those in underdeveloped nations would have more - consume more? It might be just the opposite would be true; that if the rich consume less, the rest of the world’s economy produces less, exports less and consumes less as well. Is it even possible to limit, control or regulate consumption of any class without increasing deprivation at all levels?

Perhaps the unconscious goal of liberalism's class warfare really is for everyone, including the poor, to make do with less - to spread misery equally. Would the statist choose to eliminate what they perceive as exploitation even if it meant that the majority would suffer more? Is it better for everyone to make do in this world with less than live in a world where the majority is subjected to a minority egregiously brandishing their wealth. Could all of liberalism perhaps be founded upon simple resentment? Could only a faultily organized world excessively reward materially primarily those of lesser spiritual development? Or is moral superiority itself a psychological substitution for one’s inability to succeed materially? Can any rich person truly be a ‘good’ person?

Obama in a late campaign interview was asked whether he would raise capital gains taxes knowing that in every historical instance it has resulted in less revenue for the government? He answered that he would because of the issue of fairness. Better less economic growth than unequal growth. My definition of a leftist ‘true believer’ is one that would see us all of us do worse rather than facilitate a few doing significantly better. Obama is a true believer, and the failure of the American people to understand the economic significance of that bodes ill for all of us, rich and poor alike, for the unforeseeable future.


'Equality, I spoke the word, as if a wedding vow. But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now'. Bob Dylan