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The power of the
rich
Walter E. Williams (back
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September 1, 2004
The truly rich don't deserve all the political hype we hear; they're
only a tiny percentage of our population and not that important. According to
recent U.S. Treasury statistics, the top 1 percent of income earners have an
adjusted gross income that starts around $300,000. While $300,000 or $400,000 a
year is nothing to sneeze at, it's a far cry from being rich; it's not even
yacht-and-Gulfstream-jet money. The truly rich Americans are those with assets
like Bill Gates ($46 billion), Warren Buffett ($43 billion) and Paul Allen ($21
billion). All told, there are about 275 Americans in the billionaire club.
Having just a couple of million dollars in assets won't get you much respect as
a rich person. Even if Gates, Buffett, Allen and the 272 other billionaires pooled
their assets, what could they make you and me do? Could they force you to bus
your kid to a school across town? Could they force you to abandon use of your
property so as to provide an abode for some endangered species? Could they force
you to wear a seat belt when you drive? Or could they force you into the
government's retirement program? All by themselves, billionaires and
millionaires have little power over us compared to the awesome power that
politicians and midlevel government bureaucrats have over us. They can force us
to do many things that we otherwise wouldn't do. "All by themselves" is the operative phrase. The rich can get power
over us, but they must first spend their resources to get permission from our
elected representatives to rip us off. Wealthy corporate executives can use
their wealth and influence to get politicians to rig markets in their favor --
like keeping foreign sugar out so they can charge us higher prices and earn more
profit. They can convince politicians to enact laws and regulations and create
special privileges that benefit them and their allies at the expense of the rest
of us. Donald Trump got politicians to use laws of eminent domain to throw Vera
Coking, an elderly widow, out of her Atlantic City, N.J., home to make room for
expansion of his casino. Had it not been for the Washington, D.C.-based
Institute for Justice, Atlantic City officials would have succeeded. We might be tempted to blame the rich. I say no. In the example of
Donald Trump, had he privately tried to take Vera Coking's house, he would have
been arrested and sent to jail. He avoids that risk by getting politicians under
the color of law to do the same thing. In this case, we should blame politicians
much more than Donald Trump. Finally, there's one thing that I truly don't understand. America's
leftists, whether they are heads-full-of-mush college students and their
professors, politicians, civil rights activists or union leaders, just love to
beat up on the rich. But there's something they need to explain. Why are so many of their heroes rich and super rich? Most leftists,
unionists and ex-flower children support John Kerry's candidacy. It turns out
that if Kerry becomes president, he'll be the richest president in U.S. history
and his vice president a multimillionaire. Leftists also idolize and worship the
Hollywood rich and other rich people in the sports and entertainment industries.
I'd like to know their criteria for which rich deserve our condemnation and
which don't. As for me, I have nothing against rich people. In fact, I've been
struggling most of my life to join them.
The 99 percent plus of the rest of us can safely
ignore the truly rich. Our attention is better focused on issues far more
important to us instead of allowing politicians to divert our attention by
getting us worked up over whether the rich are paying their fair share and
so-called tax cuts for the rich. The reason we can ignore the rich is because
they have little or no power over our lives.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Contact Walter E. Williams | Read Williams's biography
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