Michael Blim, at 3 Quarks Daily, addresses the dangers of the pooling of power, a topic I've discussed (in various lights) here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here:
Can you imagine a world without the rich?
You might say that the rich we have had as long as we have had the poor. As the incredulous swell in an old wine commercial said to the ingénue: “How do you think I got so rich?”
Most Americans today accept the rich as they do death and taxes as another one of life’s annoying basic facts. It is unusual for Americans to realize that we as a society are responsible for their existence. We believe what they tell us. Once again, an old commercial suffices: As John Houseman, bow-tied, and quintessentially the patrician Harvard law professor he once played put it about his client: “At Smith Barney, we make money the old fashioned way – we earn it!”
(Parenthetically, who among the moneychangers would dare run this ad now?)
We need not countenance their existence forever. One need not bring back Stalin to reduce or eliminate the rich. Scandinavian countries do quite well in minimizing their presence. And there is little mystery in how to reduce or eliminate the economic power of the rich. Steeply progressive income taxes, elimination of inherited wealth through estate taxes, and income redistribution along with a robust welfare state can do it.
If Americans examined the deeper damage that the rich do to society, perhaps they might be willing to try cutting the rich down to size.
