“Under capitalism, the rich grow powerful. Under socialism, the powerful grow rich — and everyone else grows poor.” – Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit)
Why is socialism growing more powerful in the United States? Because it directly benefits the gentry class: those running the country and those supporting them. This includes not just the political elite, but also the upper-middle-class, credentialed workers who work white-collar jobs – management and technology. The folks who can work remotely and get all their wants and needs delivered to their door.
(If you have not already, listen to Peter Robinson’s latest Uncommon Knowledge: What Happened: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya On 19 Months Of COVID. While primarily about the Covid lockdowns, it addresses the same issues I address here: how an elite can advance themselves at the expense of others. Go on and listen, I’ll still be here.)
Some might say I am nuts. The upper-middle class is the group in the highest tax brackets – the ones on which the burden of paying for government falls upon the most heavily. The working class and poor pay little to no income tax. Except part of that burden is s sleight-of-hand illusion. The top 10% of income earners have many ways of sheltering their income from taxes, which are often entered into the tax code in the interest of “fairness.” (An example is the recent attempt to remove ceilings on SALT tax deductions,) But more than that, those high tax rates are how they maintain their position in society. We do not have wealth taxes. Those who “have theirs” do not get what they do have taxed. They only get taxed on their income. As do their potential competitors.
Those potential competitors are the ones to whom high marginal tax rates are targeted. These are the Horatio Algers of American society. Those that arrive in this country penniless and through hard work, intelligent choices, and a little luck, build a business and amass wealth. But making money takes capital. High tax rates slow the accumulation of capital. Until capital grows to a critical mass, it is difficult to take the risks associated with starting a business unless you are willing to gamble everything on a low-odds effort. High tax rates ensure most of those who could potentially enter the top ten percent age out by the time they get there.
Additionally, for the first time in our history we are developing a rigid caste system. It is disguised as meritocracy, but it really is not. Credentials are now far more important than capability, If you don’t go to the right schools, get the right degrees, and have the right credentials, you are often not allowed to compete in the marketplace of ideas. The gentry class is the ones best positioned to see its children go to those schools and get the appropriate credentials to assume influential positions. (Can you imagine the uproar that would ensue if someone without an Ivy League education and the appropriate internships were nominated to the Supreme Court? Has not happened since I was a child.) The children of the gentry class get into these schools and gain these credentials regardless of their abilities. Unless they are short-bus dumb they pass through on “gentlemen’s” A’s. (Since everyone gets an “A” nowadays, Except for those attempting to push in from the outside, who somehow slipped in. They are still graded on performance.)
We complete the creation of an aristocracy by discouraging those outside of it from gaining the tools to enter it. We sabotage the public education system (in the name of making it “better” for the disenfranchised), defund the police (allowing looters to prevent the accumulation of capital through theft – all while providing private security and gated communities for the gentry class), and increase regulation (again in the name of fairness, but in actuality to prevent individuals from working for themselves or any company not large enough to afford the overhead to deal with the regulation). Regulation has the double benefit of providing the gentry class with plentiful opportunities for graft – enriching themselves while reducing the capital of those desperate to start their own businesses.
What we are evolving to is the Soviet model, with an elite Nomenklatura lording over an impoverished peasantry. We are not yet there. (Ricochet will cease to exist once we get there – or become a completely neutered site posting only what the government approves,) But we are approaching it. The peasants wear masks in public while the aristocrats preen for each other – maskless – on the runway. We are forced to accept vaccine mandates to keep our jobs, while the elite ignore them. And soon, we will have travel restrictions for the mass of the public, which do not apply to the elite.
Tell me, what is the difference between a socialist country and a medieval kingdom? I fail to see a substantive difference. That is why so many running this country and running its big businesses like socialism. It allows them to be feudal lords again – with divine right of kings replaced by socialist dogma.
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