We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day – Why being rich is great edition “Liberalism depends on institutions, including those for free speech and inquiry. Liberalism is also a project for freeing man from the physical constraints of nature. The personal autonomy of those with resources often advances the infrastructure and culture of liberalism that protects the personal autonomy of others who are not as well off. The dynamism of liberalism is its best defense.”
– John O Mcginnis
The author gives a sharp critique of a book by Ingrid Robeyns that claims we should eliminate rich people – not by killing them, but seizing their money. At the moment, we appear to live in a time when hostility to great wealth is respectable, and yet in my gut I sense the same kind of horrible, “tall poppy syndrome” mindset that has led to confiscatory taxes, and countless other abominations that are based on a zero-sum view of the world that at its heart is wrong and in my view, malevolent.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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From this point of view, even as innocuous (or socially benign) a tall poppy as J K Rowling is converted into an overmighty subject whose extreme wealth grants her license to ostentatiously defy the general will regarding prevailing morality on trans issues and so confiscation of her wealth is justified.
I was once told that it was unfair the rich could (…) and the rest of us could not afford to. To which I replied, “They’re volunteering to be guinea pigs, to find out if something new works, and is worthwhile.” If the new medical treatment works, it’ll trickle down to the rest of us sooner or later. If we’re going to the Moon, or Mars, I’m glad Elon Musk is putting up his billions to make spaceships.
I thought “yet” was used to join clauses that seemed to contradict each other, but it seems to me that “hostility to great wealth” and “confiscatory taxes”, etc. fit together nicely.
Have I been using “yet” wrong? Is this a British English/American English distinction? Or did I misunderstand Pearce’s sentence?
I recall reading a science fiction story in my youth (can’t remember the name as it was more than 50 years ago) where all the wealth in a country was gathered in a big heap and distributed to everyone.
Within a month, there were millionaires and poverty stricken people. The millionaires had bought up barley, hops and yeast, brewed booze and sold it to the now poverty stricken ones or made stuff that their new found wealth could be spent on.
Funny how that works, eh?
In my experience, “rich” people don’t see money as wealth and something to spend on goods, holidays and other frivolous stuff but as a tool to make more money by investing it in a business, shares etc.
My alma mater is Nottingham University. The main campus is set in very attractive parkland near the city centre. It was a gift from Sir Jesse Boot. When I was there in the ’90s it boasted the highest-rated pharmacy department in Europe. I think you can guess how Sir Jesse made his money!
Oddly enough there isn’t a statue on campus. There is one of DH Lawrence who hated the place and only got a teaching certificate from, “That dismal college on the Trent” (his words) rather than the degree he wanted.
Anyway, I did get a degree in physics. I also knew this guy. Nicest bloke I ever met in academia. He pretty much invented the MRI scanner and won the 2003 Nobel Prize for it.
All this, largely, from a gift from a rich man…
Sapientia Urbs Conditur!
Oh, also. I’ve been poor. I am creamy middles now. Never been rich but I get Ellen’s idea. I’d also add, from experience, being poor is very expensive. You simply can’t work strategically. I mean, even, at the most basic level, if you ain’t got a car then shopping is pricier.
There was a guy who got a job in the warehouse at the place that I used to work. Second week he comes in to work off his tits on drugs and gets fired. It was a decent place to work and payed a little over the odds for the type of work involved. If this guy is poor whose fault is it? I also know a guy who has held down reasonable jobs his whole life. He’s always been broke as long as I’ve known him, at sixty he’s still broke. Most of what he has is stuff that friends and relatives have given him for nothing, I’ve no idea where his money goes.
My problem with uber-richness is most (all?) of them got there by cozying up to the Government. I don’t blame them; it’s the game.
The game is what it is because of the encroachment of government into everything. And it gets bigger every year. Even when it isn’t getting bigger as in budgets, it’s still creeping into new corners of our lives! One reason I hate paying my US State taxes is because every dollar I send to the State gets used to do something I detest. Even when it’s building roads, they manage to do that so badly (corruptly) that it sickens me as well.
Back to the uber-rich: I have no idea where the line is between “uber-rich” where Government connections/favors are critical and the mere rich who got their wealth through means most of us might admire. Is the line at $1B? Depends on which billionaire we’re talking about right? Like Musk, who has definitely benefited from playing the game, but look at what he’s accomplished! So, if there are 1000 uber-rich people on the planet, the success rate (Musk) is about 0.1%
But what to do? I started writing my answer to that but that’s a dark hole so I’ll spare you all.
@Stonyground
Honest question — the guy who got fired for being on drugs, and the guy who worked a decent job all his life but has no money. What is to be done with people like that? For sure, they got themselves in the mess. But what are we to do about them? Nothing? Let them starve in the street or turn to crime? The 60 year old? When he is too old to work, what should we do with him? Leave him to die? Deny him the basic medical treatment he needs?
I mean that is the dilemma, right? Does the fact that I exist place a financial obligation on you? This is a foundational question, an axiomatic one, in ethics, and I think is one of three or four questions that are at the root of the all political and ethical disagreements.
@GregWA
My problem with uber-richness is most (all?) of them got there by cozying up to the Government. I don’t blame them; it’s the game.
I’m not sure that is true. It is definitely true in some instances, but Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, none of them got rich by cozying up to the government. They created world transformative products and we are all richly better off because of them.
Now there are definitely people who did get rich off the government, warmongering for example, is a very profitable business, as is climate change. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Were it not for the prospect of great financial success we would not have the amazing technology ecosystem that we have today.
I’m not a socialist and in principle aren’t against inequality or rich people. But it is fairly obvious a lot of the contemporary wealthy, whether they earned their money with government help or not, use their wealth and power malevolently. Look at the political parties they donate to, look at the NGOs they sponsor and patronise, look at the ‘intellectuals’ they celebrate.
So using violence against civilians to support the left is okay…
As my boss says, everything before the “but” is bullshit.
If the rich were taken out of the equation, then the same political power would be usurped by someone else. For a start actual politicians have way more power and sway than the wealthy, duh!. As secondary sources of power, instead we would have journalists, demagogues, religious leaders, unionists, academics, tribal leaders and god knows who else. In a sense we are better off when the people who have an “extra” say are those that have wealth to protect (because they actually want a functioning economy) and are cleverer than average.
Since my politics don’t particularly align with the majority, I am not perturbed by it not aligning with most rich people either.
Where did I say get rid of the rich per se? I think the ultrawealthy are an inevitability. It would be better though if more of them were patriots, and not globalist oligarchs like George Soros, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg, Larry Fink, Jamie Dimon, etc.
Root of the problem isn’t the money, but the arrogance that comes with it a lot of the time.
I met a guy who is damn near a billionaire; he has made tons of money for himself and others, treats employees like kings, and never has a bad thing to say to anyone. Zero ego.
By contrast, look at the arseholes like Soros, Schwab, and Gates.
How do you enable the first sort of “wealthy” and not the second?
One could make the argument that much wealth is not legitimate as it is from the “Cantillon Effect” of Credit Money creation (they system that created such powers as BlackRock, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank – and such puppets as Bob Iger if the Disney Corporation) and government regulations (such as the regulations that created the wealth of Mr William “Bill” Gates) and government favours (the endless government favours and sweetheart deals that created the wealth of Mr Warren Buffett).
But this is NOT the argument the left are making – they hate rich people because-they-are-rich, regardless as to whether the rich are corrupt such as Mr Gates and Mr Buffett, or honest men such as the late Jon Huntsman Senior (SENIOR – when I have typed this before some people have insisted in confusing him with the ex Governor of Utah – admittedly the latter was his son).
As the left hate rich people for-being-rich and wish to rob rich people regardless-of-how-their-wealth was created – pro liberty people (or just decent people in general) should oppose the left – to the death.
The robbing the rich argument stems from the narcissistic
belief that leftist elites know how to spend other people’s money better than those with their own money, a fact that has yet to be demonstrated as true.
What is to be done? I don’t know. The point that I’m trying, possibly badly, to get across is against the socialist idea that poor people are just victims of the evil capitalist system and have no agency of their own. That all we need to do is redistribute some wealth and they will be fine. The two examples that I have given, in my opinion, wouldn’t be helped by being handed a share of rich people’s money, they would blow through it within a year and be broke again.
@Runcie Balspune
The robbing the rich argument stems from the narcissistic
belief that leftist elites know how to spend other people’s money better than those with their own money, a fact that has yet to be demonstrated as true.
Actually, a fact that has consistently been demonstrated to be false. But I think you capture very succinctly the lie at the center of “soak the rich”.
@Fraser Orr, I believe this is the real argument, rather than justify whether “the rich” need to be bled dry or not. question what they intend to do with the money, if it’s to hand over to a bunch of economic idiots who so far have wasted so much that my unborn great-grandchildren will be paying off the debt, and whose sole financial interest is bribing voters with their own cash, then I’d rather they come up with some other grand plan first.
As has been known for at least three centuries – much wealth is indeed not legitimate, it is from corrupt banker Credit Money creation (the Cantillon Effect) and government favours – but the left go vastly beyond this.
Some classical philosophers supposed that wealth must be based on injustice – but they did not explain WHY this is so, behind the high language of Plato and so on was little more than ENVY – and anger that rich merchants seemed to carry more respect than philosophers. the Abbe de Mably and his follower Rousseau renewed the attack on the rich in the 18th century – but again their attacks had no real foundation, but the the left came upon a theory – the Labour Theory of Value.
Using the FALSE Labour Theory of Value (which seems to have come from confused thinking from Adam Smith himself – but was formally laid out by David Ricardo and James Mill – themselves not leftists) the left have gone the road of claiming that wealth is automatically “exploitation” and “oppression” and “the rich”, who turn out to include a lot of very POOR people (“henchmen of the kulaks” and so on), must be plundered-and-destroyed.
This is why the left must be opposed.
This week the Economist magazine managed to out-left the leader to the Chinese Communist Party.
The Economist magazine (which denies the physical fact that it is a magazine) denounced the Dictator of China for…. (wait-for-it, wait-for-it) not spending enough on government pensions for the elderly, government health care, and for not giving welfare benefits to migrant workers in the cities.
Perhaps next week the Economist magazine will denounce the Dictator for not pushing Trans Sexualism on Chinese children – as opposed to just pushing it in the West (as Tic Toc, and other CCP influenced things, clearly do – and which they do NOT do in China).
Things have got to a bad place when the “Classical Liberal” Economist magazine is to the left of the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
Martin writes: I’m not a socialist and in principle aren’t against inequality or rich people. But it is fairly obvious a lot of the contemporary wealthy, whether they earned their money with government help or not, use their wealth and power malevolently. Look at the political parties they donate to, look at the NGOs they sponsor and patronise, look at the ‘intellectuals’ they celebrate.
I am not sure I buy this argument. For every noisy wealthy person endowing a cause one might dislike, there are, I suspect, many more who don’t donate to such causes, or if they do donate, do so to fairly humdrum charities and the like. Be careful about the mistake of assuming that the loudest, most-reported rich people are the norm.
And even if you are right, Martin, that many do give to causes you dislike, that doesn’t for a second justify grabbing their wealth if it is honestly earned without coercion.
It is true that inheriting great wealth, or even making it, can breed arrogance. But absent the use of coercion by them, the state has no business telling them what to do. Inheritors who blow their wealth on nonsense will come back to Earth soon enough.
Most of the progressive causes they back involve lots of coercion, so if you completely rule out any retaliatory measures, that’s unilateral disarmament and you may as well surrender to the left here and now.
So Martin, are you suggesting that wealthy people can only give money to causes you deem acceptable? How’s that going to work?
Retaliatory measures: what’s that going to mean in practice? I get that when rich Leftists support daft causes, it’s fine to harshly criticise them, but that should be the limit.
Seems a bit like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Your side loses.
The left are not interested in debate and they’re not interested in ‘harsh criticism’. They have to be defeated. If undermining their economic strength (ie donor class) assists this aim, then I aren’t immediately hostile to considering various ways of achieving this.
Martin, do you think rich people whose views you don’t like should be treated in what way? Should they be banned from lawful activities because you dispute their views?
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem not to have quite got the hang of liberty under the rule of law. I’m not quite sure why you’re here.