The New Aristocracy

Henry Oliner at the American Thinker takes a look at leftist policies and the results thereof, and notices something that I’ve been seeing for a while: they’re encouraging the formation of a new left-wing aristocratic class.

While the social engineers decry the hardening and widening of discrepancies in income, this is true only if you look at the categories as static groups. As Thomas Sowell notes, when you look beyond the groups at individuals you find a fluid and mobile society. Few in the bottom tier stay there, and many in the upper tier drop out of that category.

Focusing only on the income categories ignores the social mobility that characterizes America’s success. Unfortunately, the growth in government, taxes, and regulation damages that social mobility and hardens the social order. The wealthy will focus on retaining and protecting their wealth, reducing the capital that funds the opportunity for the poorer to acquire wealth. The efficient creation and allocation of capital that we call capitalism is the most effective, productive, unbiased, and sustainable instrument of redistribution in history. It was this new social order that toppled the aristocracy in Europe and made America the wealth creation engine that it is. It was this machine that attracted the poor from the rest of the work to create their own fortune.

It is harshly ironic that this president who so openly preached redistribution will more likely hinder it. It is the young who will pay more for health care and get less, who will have to pay the interest on this record debt, and who will be penalized the most for reaching to the next income bracket.

It is also noteworthy that this president’s policies will more likely help the large corporations that he demonizes than the small business that not only more effectively redistribute the wealth, but also create most of the new jobs we so desperately need. It is the large companies getting bailed out and the small businesses with higher variable costs that will suffer more from higher taxes and mandates. It is much easier to shut down a business with lower fixed costs, leaving less competition to the established companies.

Interesting historical note: the Republican Party was so named because its founders wanted to restore republican ideals, which the Democratic party was eroding in favor of creating a white, landed aristocracy. Oh, how history repeats …

Read the whole thing here.