Limited, Inc.

Making the rich less rich is not socialism I’ve become a reader of Floyd Norris’ blog over at the NYT. I’ve noticed, with some amusement, that any time a vague and distant hint arises that the rich in America might be oh, oh, slightly too… rich, the comments section is reliably flooded by screeds against socialism and for the American way. It makes me long for a snappy way to point out that capitalism was not abolished in the U.S. in the fifties, nor was the Reagan tax cut on the wealthiest the second coming of Adam Smith in the eighties. What is funny about the rabid defense of the wealthy is that I imagine it often comes from the non-wealthy. It isn’t like billionaires are trolling blogs. But what they are defending is, of course, absolutely against their interests. It is the great American paradox: the almost saintly disinterestedness of the American householder in defense of systematic greed. There are a number of ways to redistribute wealth down. Imagine, f