Compassion for the rich

Lest anyone think this is anything resembling a classic right-wing view, I favor increasing taxes on the wealthy to fund needed programs. Read with that in mind.

If there's any enemy all progressives can agree on, it's the rich. The one percent, or the tenth of one percent. Surely it's open season on them, right? They're our class enemies?

Let's think about them first as people.

Consider the person who is born into a very wealthy family. They come of age and let's say they control $500 million. What do we expect them to do? Should they consider themselves evil? Should they consider their parents evil? Should they instantly give away the vast majority of what they own? Is it understandable if they feel this would be a betrayal of their parents' values? It's not obvious how to give it away. Some of them solve this problem by giving to a charity. Many might hold onto it for a while while they figure out what to do with it. Maybe there will be a better charity next year. Once you give it away, you never get it back. Realizing you've given a lot of money to a fraudulent organization could be very painful.

People get rich in the first place from some combination of luck (neutral), hard work, wisdom and insight (positive), and unethical or criminal dealings (negative). You might have different feelings about rich people depending on what combination got them rich.

What you do with your capital is largely independent of how much you actually spend on yourself each year. You certainly could be very rich and live modestly. On the other hand, if all your relatives have one sort of lifestyle, it is against human nature to freely adopt a much more frugal one.

If this is hard to understand, consider yourself a citizen of the world rather than an American. Think of your lifestyle. Compare it to that of a poor person in the Third World. You did nothing laudable to deserve being an American. They made no mistake to deserve being a poor person in the Third World. So why don't you adopt a lifestyle intermediate between yours and theirs and give most of your money to benefit them? Can you come up with a convincing justification for why you don't? I doubt it. Most likely, you're accustomed to living a certain way, your family, friends and peers live that way, and you want to keep living that way. I suspect rich people feel the same way.

You can identify an opponent (I still hesitate to call them an enemy) if they give money to right-wing causes and candidates. The Koch brothers are a famous case. On the other hand, there are a few billionaires, notably Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who have promised to give most of their assets to charity and who (I believe) support Democrats rather than Republicans.

Instead of lumping all rich people into one class, consider the ways they differ, and do not alienate them unnecessarily. Some will join your cause.

I'm not saying that government policies have to avoid hurting the feelings of the rich. Higher income tax rates, a reinvigorated inheritance tax, and a new wealth tax all make sense. We desperately need money for infrastructure and social programs, and they are the only people who have the needed assets (and they have a lot). But there's nothing inherently good about taking their money. We should sympathize with the pain they will feel -- though it shouldn't stop us from enacting those policies.

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7/20/2019. A reader pointed out that while I suggested taxing income, inheritance, and assets of rich people, I said nothing about campaign finance reform limiting what rich people can spend or at the least requiring transparency in political donations. The issue just never occurred to me while writing the post. I am strongly in favor of such limitations. In line with my general point, I also sympathize with rich people who want to be able to spend their money however they want, though I still favor the limitations.