- "The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the
hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital.
Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the
interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These
need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation,
on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive
change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the
people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations,
and for corporations..."
- From the diary of President Rutherford B. Hayes (11 March 1888)
25 November 2016
Plutocracy and oligarchy
Not a new problem:
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This chart is illuminating:
ReplyDeletehttp://ritholtz.com/2016/11/top-0-1-holds-amount-wealth-bottom-90/
Yes. I've blogged that chart before:
Deletehttp://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2014/11/american-plutocracy.html
There are many who think wealth is a right inherited from ancestors. Though factual, untaxed, it is counterproductive to social progress. Wealth is privilege. The only way to control wealth and prevent it from exercising excesses including and especially the use of greed to incite lawlessness; is to tax wealth progressively and union the eventual transfer due expiration of the parties chiefly responsible for the accumulation of idled assets.
ReplyDeleteThere are no alternative solutions. The failure to tax wealth is the license of foolishness. No single human should be beyond justice due to wealth. The least should have remedy for complaint and the role of government in civil dispute should not be arbitrary due to the ability of the wealthy to purchase favor by bribe, lobbying, or political underwriting.
If wealth is taxed to the degree that the individual holder and creator thereof benefits the society as greatly as the society benefits from their innovations, creations, or methods of efficient production, the state should Prosperity and the people thereof also.