Is Being Rich Being Evil?
1911 Poster from “Industrial Worker”
There was a recent suggestion from Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to tax the first $10 million by 70 percent, a suggestion that received favorable polls as broken down by the New York Post. Now, while she makes the argument that the taxes were much higher in the 1950s and '60s, I was still taken aback by such an idea. I used to think that the rich were full of greedy people that hoard their wealth, and would also think "What could you possibly do with all that money?" But after some pondering and listening to arguments for both sides, I realized that the rich are not the enemy.
Every time there is talk about the rich, there also seems to be the talk of the dispossessed people that come as a result of capitalism and an unfair power hierarchy of which only benefits those at the top. And while this may be superficially correct, looking deeper into the situation proves this not to be the case. While many see those at the top as those privileged by unfair advantages, in truth, it is the majority of the people that have placed them there. As Jordan Peterson (of which I have mentioned in previous blogs) points out, there is no such thing as a hierarchy based on power distributions and instead, the hierarchy is based on competence. He then goes to mention why hierarchies are established, to which he attributes value being the foundational reason. As people, we value certain things above others, and this creates a hierarchy of priority. And when someone is able to produce that value efficiently, we reward them by placing them higher in the said hierarchy because they are competent enough to give us the things we prioritize. Once I opened my eyes to this idea, I no longer saw the ultra-rich people as an enemy of the people, but instead as a competent benefactor of our values.
However, the question of what someone could possibly do with so much money (take for instance Jeff Bezos who had a net worth of $150 billion) is still unanswered. It is obvious that a lot of that money comes from investments and not actual cash, but regardless, there is still a lot of money at hand, which could be used for better purposes. For instance, Bill Gates has funneled a lot of money for research and education and promises to give a lot of it away after death, and this is the kind of thing that I believe is necessary. This idea is best articulated in Andrew Carnegie's "The Gospel of Wealth" where he argues that the rich should use their money in philanthropic endeavors and those who are stingy with their money should be taxed heavily and have a lot of their estates reduced after death. Now, while he may have had some rather harsh views on why certain people were poor, the philanthropic idea is something that should not be overlooked. I am very much of the mindset that the wealthy should use their large mass of wealth for the greater good, and I now see why Ocasio-Cortez would like to tax them at such a high rate because then the government could use the added money for public goods. The only problem that I see with this is the fact that the people are not necessarily doing something out of the goodness of their heart, plus there needs to be cautious as economics shows that having a high enough tax rate results in more loss than gain.
