SOME TIME AGO, I POSTED an article on a quote by Adrian Rogers. I've received a lot of questions about it from some conservatives. This is the second post aimed at answering those questions. You can find the introduction, and answers to the first two questions here. The original post is here.
Today's questions, numbers 3, 4, and 5, are:
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"How much money do you need to have to be one of these rich parasites?"
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"Why do you assume that rich people are immoral?"
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"But don't you understand that the rich supply the jobs the rest of us need?"
My answers:
- "How much money do you need to have to be one of these rich parasites?"
I think the implication in this question is that it's hard to draw the line between rich and poor. We're all on a continuum, some have a little more, others a little less. Aren't the wealthy just people who have a little more than I do?
Actually, it's a good question. There are all kinds of levels of wealth in this country, and in the world as a whole. There are people who work for minimum wage, there are professionals who work for themselves, there's middle management, CEO's, and, floating above it all, billionaires who don't ever have to lift a finger.
If you ask how the financial wealth is distributed among all these people, the answer is that most of the list above is in the bottom 80% of the populace. That bottom eighty percent owns less than 9% of the financial wealth in this country.
The top 5% own almost 70% of the wealth, and the top 1%, alone, owns 40%.
That means that if the wealth, which we all work for, were distributed evenly, 80% of us would be ten times as rich as we are now.
I'm not suggesting that we should try to do that. I'm just pointing out how uneven the distribution actually is. A few people at the top are positioned to skim off, not 5% or 10% of the wealth, but more than half of it. - "Why do you assume that rich people are immoral?"
I don't. I've never met any of the top 1%, as far as I know, but I have met many people who were much better off than I am, and I've always liked them.
The problem isn't the character of the wealthy, it's the way the economic system is structured.
Let me give you just one example. When it comes to income taxes, the government distinguishes between earned and unearned income. Earned income is money that people worked for. Unearned income, mostly capital gains, is money that people got without working. This could be investment income, or money from the sale of some property that's appreciated over the years, etc.
The basic tax rate on unearned income is less than it is on earned income. Does that make sense? The person who works hard day in and day out to pay the bills pays a higher tax rate than billionaires whose investment experts make their billions grow while they're out sailing on one of their yachts. - "But don't you understand that the rich supply the jobs the rest of us need?"
There's some truth to this, but it's beside the point.
The reason an entrepreneur has to look to the super-wealthy for funding, rather than, say, to her friends and family, or to her own savings, is that wealth is so grossly mis-distributed.
I'm not arguing against capital. We need resources to invest in new businesses. There's no reason, however, that all that money needs to concentrated in such few hands.
There's also a kind of hidden assumption in this question—and in the original quote from Rogers.
It's the idea that somehow the very wealthy deserve their unearned wealth, while the rest of us don't. You'll notice that Rogers talks about the freedom of the wealthy, when he really means their money. Taxes on excessive wealth, in his view are a violation of the rights of the rich. This harks back to the divine right of kings, which was also based on ownership.
We should be grateful to the wealthy if they use money they didn't earn to provide us with jobs, so we can earn them more money.
But the thought that a working person might get some health insurance, or welfare to feed his kids when he's been laid off—laid off because the CEO decided to protect the investments of the wealthy at his expense—that thought is shocking . Rogers thinks the working guy doesn't deserve it. He's robbing the wealthy.
To be continued...
