Til There Are No Rich No More

    Alexandra Ocasio Cortez is the only public figure I've seen who has even passingly mentioned what needs done about the unsustainable concentrations of wealth we are falling victim to.

    Everyone else has either implied or outright said the beneficiaries of those piles of wealth are bad people.  I can't see that as universally true and I can see why it offends some people.  I don't like having my motives questioned or being called names because I'm poor and I can't imagine I'd like it any better if I were rich. I certainly could stand giving it the old college try.

    Here's the consistent problem.  Industrialization has always and will always create great piles and concentrations of wealth far beyond the needs or even comprehension of any single individual or group.  The question always has been; what do we do about that?  Good, bad it doesn't really matter, it just is. The motives and personal interests of those at the top of that concentration or at the bottom really have no bearing on the actual problem.  That's why class-based solutions and criticisms have very little impact.  It's the wrong approach.  The goal of all successful forms of social organization has always been, "the greatest good for the greatest number". Contrary to what a lot of people would try to convince you of that does not imply or call for some sort of communism or socialism.  It doesn't mean we should eliminate wealth. It does mean we should manage that wealth properly.  Actually, the creation and concentration of wealth is useful and even necessary and should be encouraged.  The trick is to manage it to reduce or eliminate general harm. That's what economists have been observing, commenting on and trying to accomplish since the days of Smith and Malthus on to Marx and Engles, on to the present day.

    We have a perfect example of how and why wealth should have been properly managed close at hand. The undeniable truth is, had we not allowed violence to be done to the tax codes decades ago we would be in a much better position to manage the emergency we face with the pandemic.  Were we not mired in senseless debt already, the borrowing necessary to address this problem would not be the disaster it certainly is going to inevitably become.  Eventually, we are all, including the famous 1%, going to sacrifice to pay back this real money, being borrowed from real people. Real money, real people.  We can't lose sight of that facet and fact. It should be considered at every step as an underlying condition.

    This should be considered too.  I've done the math. If we confiscated every cent in the hands of the famous 1% it wouldn't pay our bills for even a couple years.  Applied another way, it wouldn't make much of a dent in our National Debt. Anyone contemplating that extremity as a solution better start work on a plan B.

    Ocasio-Cortez, contrary to what has been said, has not proposed anything radical or unworkable.  What she and others have done is look at what worked and proposed we return to it.  The post-Great Depression and post-World War Two tax policies and codes were adopted across the Western Democracies to eliminate the seemingly inevitable boom and bust cycles of earlier capitalism that are tied to these concentrations of fantastic wealth.  In comparison, what we have seen over the last 40 years seems to prove those tax codes and reforms worked and eliminating them has failed. It's not radical, it's not rocket science, it's common sense.

    Somehow the idea of a more level playing field has been portrayed as anti-capitalist.  That's not true or even sensible. Every problem presents an opportunity for solutions.  In the face of these serious challenges we have the right time and the right people of goodwill to not just survive but to propel us into a very profitable future for everyone. We have a clear map we have already drawn and followed to success.  We would be fools not to consult it and follow it again and in the process discard that which has clearly failed.

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