The Hyper-rich Versus Democracy:

Why You Should be a Liberal

I still believe that America is a place where a guy can make a million bucks. Ronald Reagan

The problem is that we can’t all be millionaires, Ron. After reading the series Class Matters in the New York Times, Reagan may want to revise his quote. America is a place where a guy can make $100 million or $1 billion. America seems to be evolving into a place where you had better make a million bucks, because anything less will leave you out in the cold without adequate health care or a decent college for your kids. We seem to be moving towards a culture of the “haves,” the “have mores,” and those who will do the yard work for those two groups.

We are rapidly becoming a very class-oriented society. The rich are getting a lot richer. The poor are getting poorer, with less access to adequate medical attention and good schools. Upward mobility is being eliminated, which means that if you were born poor chances are you will die poor. Welcome back the Middle Ages. How much longer will it be before we are required to bow to the rich when their carriages pass or their private jet flies over?

The talking point from the conservatives will immediately require them to brand me as someone who “hates the rich.” Anyone who mentions a need for a more equitable distribution of income via a higher tax portion for the rich is a socialist. I would counter that anyone opposing higher taxes for the hyper-rich is against democracy. It is not so much the money that these people have; it’s the power that their money can buy. When 400 of the richest taxpayers earn half as much as the bottom 28 million citizens, the word “citizen” becomes rather suspect (This means that if you took the income of those top 400 and gave it to the bottom 28 million it would mean a 50% pay raise). I am terribly worried about the society in which I live that allows so few people to have so much influence.

Perhaps the journalist for The Times was putting words into the mouth of Michael Kittredge, the 53 year old, incredibly fatuous super-rich resident of hyper-elite Nantucket, but he hit the nail on the head when he said that the island was like a castle with a moat around it. Today’s ostentatious aristocracy would make the monarchs of mediaeval Europe blush with their excesses. There is a picture on the cover of the June 5, 2005 New York Times showing Kittredge out on his beach digging for clams, looking like Marie Antoinette working at her fake farm at Versailles. Remember what happened to her, Mr. Kittredge

There is no possible way that this lopsided distribution of wealth does not present a serious challenge to our democracy and our ideal that all men are created equal. Not only is the present tax structure slanted to favor the hyper-rich, we have also been told that the inheritance tax (called the death tax) is somehow contrary to the ideals of America. This means that the Kittredges of the country can pass on all of the wealth to their progeny who did nothing to earn it.

The current anti-tax revolution in this country is quickly going to eliminate any advantage that this country has exercised over the rest of the world thus far in the past century. Our lack of commitment to public schools is destroying America’s investment in her people. It is eliminating our ability to innovate. The tax revenues we are giving away to the Kittredges of the country so they can buy 10,000-square-foot homes could be used to construct high speed rail networks like every advanced country is now doing.

We have all of those wonderful private schools; those kids will be our future. Do you think that the children of those richest 400 Americans will lead this country into the 21st century? Sure they will, just like they are leading our troops into battle in Iraq. No, I don’t think so. To the hyper-rich the idea of national defense means living in a gated community, it means raising the drawbridge over their moats.