The Liberal Myth That Morbid Wealth Is Just Fine
There is a grain of truth in the notion that we don’t begrudge rich people their wealth. Robert Frank divides the wealthy into three groups in his book Richistan, Lower Richistan, with net worths of $1-10 million, Middle Richistan, with net worths of $10-100 million, and Upper Richistan, with net worths in excess of $100 million. Many of the people in Lower Richistan earned their wealth through merit and hard work. They are, by and large, the millionaire next door. They worked hard and played by the rules and saved and invested, and made it to the lower reaches of wealth. If this were what liberals meant when they said they don’t begrudge the rich their money, I would wholeheartedly agree. This differential in rewards seems perfectly consistent with the ideas of John Rawls in A Theory of Justice. And few of them are doing damage to the nation. They don’t have enough money.
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Upper Richistan has several thousand inhabitants, including several hundred billionaires. Many of them are actively engaged in destroying our way of life. We know the names of some of these people, Koch, Walton, Adelson, Peterson, Romney, and Paulson. We know that they hide their contributions to candidates, we know they are indifferent to the non-citizens of Richistan, and we know they will spend as much money as it takes to impose their will on the nation.
It is stupid to agree that we don’t care about their wealth or how they got it. I say that not one of them is morbidly wealthy because of their personal merit. Instead, they ride us like Rafalca, making us dance to a tune of their choosing, taking advantage of every system and institution we established to promote the general welfare, and shamelessly demanding favorable laws and freedom from law enforcement. Not one of them contributes to society nearly what they take from us.
http://my.firedoglake.com/masaccio/2012/10/18/the-liberal-myth-that-morbid-wealth-is-just-fine/
More at the link.
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