Dear Friends,
It seems to me that calls for class warfare, snake oil that is still peddled even today, are like the old joke about the anus, but turned around a bit. The parts of the body get together and are talking and someone brings up how lazy the anus is. Another jokes about the smell. Then another chimes in that the anus has no discernable purpose only to exploit the working parts to amass wealth.
So they begin griping more and more. Some body parts say that it isn’t right to pick on the poor old anus so. Others defend it by saying it must have some use. The pro anus parts are demoted while the anti anus parts are promoted. The entire body comes to a consensus. Get rid of the anus!
So they kick the anus off the body. The blood flow immediately is increased to the rest of the body. But the flow is not really fairly distributed. The parts begin to face off again. But now they seem to be tired. The head begins to swoon the belly begins to ache and the heart grows faint. Amid the fighting they don’t to notice until it’s too late.
The anus is gone but no one can fill it’s function. Soon the body collapses and cries in grief at it’s impending death. How could this have happened? But the body expires anyway. The lesson of this foolish parable is, just because people in power think a certain way, and they tend to promote those that agree with them, doesn’t make their group think any more reliable, than that of our hapless body and anus. Especially in a dancing landscape like an economy or society, as opposed to a mount Fuji landscape.
So when anti capitalists call for the elimination of the “rich” and back it up with real threats of violence they are really threatening all of us. Because the people they call “rich” are not really those that are rich in a real sense of the term. The people the anti capitalists want to tax away are entrepreneurs. People trying to become rich. There is a big difference. The true rich pay no income taxes. Look at GE or the Ford foundation. More to the point look at powerful families like the Vanderbilt’s or Rockefellers.
They don’t pay income taxes they pay capital gains taxes. Their income stream is from investments not income. The rich start their taxes at 15% not any foolish 35% like the Elite claim. That rate is for the entrepreneur. The guy who hires people, builds things, concepts or services, the guy who improves the lot of Mankind, the guy who changes luxury into necessity, is the guy who should be taxed to death.
But even if the Elite actually did go after, and eliminate the actual rich, (which they would never actually do), the result would be collapse. No good could come of it. But the magnitude of penalizing those that provide our jobs, not only penalizing them but maligning them is downright wrong. The detrimental effect on the overall material welfare of all people is diminished. Not just the entrepreneur.
We see some of the result of vilifying the entrepreneur today in the low employment participation rate. The low participation rate masks the true unemployment rate. But one of the underlying causes of the low participation rate… is that entrepreneurs are now being vilified. Remember “Joe the Plumber?” He was told if he started a business he would be forced to “spread the wealth around.” Is this the best way to encourage job growth? Is Joe the Plumber more or less likely to start a plumbing business if the government will seize his profits and redistribute them to those that produce only crime?
No matter how you or I think of our bosses, or the people that own the firm we work for, they provide us with real benefits. They may actually be anuses, but even the anus has a vital role to play, even if they stink.
