The Rich and 'Other People'

"The rich are better off with a smaller percentage of a fast-growing economy than a larger share of an economy that’s barely moving." So wrote Robert Reich on Thursday (NYT: 09/02/10).

In economic terms, this might be true, if the rich actually earn more money, but even if they do, more money might not be what motivates them. Consider David Koch, who is worth $17.5 billion. What's a few more billion, especially since his billions continue to grow, even if the unemployment rate remains at almost 10%, and the economy is mired in a stall?

Koch is funding Tea party candidates to drive the Republican Party far to the right, and the amount of money he's spending is astonishing. He isn't motivated to earn even more in a more egalitarian society. He's driven by a non-economic motive: power. He and his brother, Charles, have been funding right-wing "think-tanks" for almost a generation, but now they see their political chance: they've got boots on the ground.

What do the Koch's and other right-wingers want? They want to be able to push everyone else around; they want to control the government, rather than pay the multi-million dollar fines (for pollution) that the EPA has levied on the Koch's; they want to undo unionization; they want to reduce even seniors to servitude, by abolishing Social Security and Medicare.

It's a class thing. David went to Deerfield Academy and MIT. He knows that 'other people' just aren't of his high quality. After all, he started rich and has gotten much richer. Being part of a growing, vital economy, growing with it, that's not part of his persona; that would include all those (shudder) 'other people.'

The Roman Senators did something similar in the Fifth Century. They cornered all the gold and land, refusing to pay taxes that would have maintained the Roman roads, or funded defense against the Barbarians. They also reduced everyone else to serfdom. The only escape for peasants and the middle class from having everything taken from them by the impoverished state was for someone to protect them. Senators only protected them if they became their serfs or slaves.

Roman Senators would have been wealthier--and safer from the Barbarians--if they had paid taxes, and contributed towards other peoples' prosperity. But to do so, they would have lost their privileges and power.

They did lose them anyway, when the Barbarians took over in 476.

So, it's not economic rationalism that drives the money behind the right-wing movement, just as it isn't rational for its followers; for the latter it's emotional, even cathartic. For people like the Koch's, it's restoring their class to the driver's seat--where it belongs, you see.

Then, they can rip off the whole country, and no one will say boo. Hell, as our imperial adventures demonstrate, they can rip off the whole world!