Except that since we're only talking about 85 People who happen to own half the world's wealth all by themselves not really so much. But that's not how Venture Capitalist Tom Perkins sees it in this WSJ Editorial.
Regarding your editorial "Censors on Campus" (Jan. 18): Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."
Yeah, cuz those two things are exactly alike. Not being sufficiently
in awe and reverence of the genius of Google and Danielle Steele equals forcibly kidnapping people by the millions, packing them into box cars and sending them to the ovens and acid showers.
Uh, no. Actually FUCK No!
First there's the idea that those who are upset with the extravagance of the 1%ers in the midst of a global economic crash and anemically slow recovery created by the greed and avarice of that very same 1% as being nothing more than an extended fit of jealousy and envy is completely missing the point.
But apparently that is exactly the point of this particular Venture Capitalist as he continues to explain how people just don't sufficiently appreciate the Rich.
From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.
It is fair to note that their have been some fairly aggressive protests of corporate buses in San Francisco of late, but it's still
not exactly like the Kristallnacht.
Corporate buses that Google and other tech companies lay on to ferry their workers from the city to Silicon Valley, 30 or 40 miles to the south, are being targeted by an increasingly assertive guerrilla campaign of disruption. Over the last two months, a groundswell of discontent over the privatization of the Bay Area’s transport system has erupted into open revolt.
Well organised protesters have blocked buses, unfurled banners and distributed flyers to tech commuters who have seemed either nonplussed, embarrassed or downright terrified. And this could be just the beginning.
But the complaint coming from these activists isn't merely a matter of jealousy, it's a concern of the impact of corporate action on everyone else as they note these buses are allowing fairly well paid and affluent workers to live far more cheaply in San Francisco than they would if they lived closer to work. This in turn is driving up rental costs in San Francisco and forcing many of the less affluent people and businesses out of the city.
Almost no San Francisco police officers live in the city any more, and neither do most restaurant workers or healthcare workers. The funky, family-owned shops that once defined the city are closing because owners cannot afford the business rent, never mind the rent on their housing. The activists claim that the so-called “Google buses” are exacerbating the problem, because they are making it easier for tech workers who might otherwise live closer to their offices to live in San Francisco instead.
...
“You are not innocent victims,” one flyer directed at tech workers said. “You live your comfortable lives surrounded by poverty, homelessness and death, seemingly oblivious to everything around you, lost in the big bucks and success.”
Actions have consequences. More often than not the actions and spending choices of the affluent have greater individual consequences than the actions and spending choices of the poor. Sometimes those choices help
create more of the poor.
And people have a right to express that view as creatively as they might like, short of putting people in harms way. I think attempts like Perkin's to make us feel deeply sorry for the horrid travails of the Rich as they float cluelessly by in their bubbles of glass and steel, leaving a wake of devastation and desperation in their path is doomed to fail.
It's not too much to ask those who benefit to pay back to the community that they benefit from. When it comes to income inequality, the most common solution is a change to tax policy which increases the share paid by those with the greatest disposable funds. Some have argued for an increase to the minimum wage with a permanent index to inflation which would help rise the tide for all boats rather than allow them to continue sinking in a sea of red ink. A recent idea I've seen is to create a reimbursement tax for corporations whose employees utilize high rates of public services. (in this case a pool of rent subsidies to help retain small businesses in SF proper could be established by the corporations whose workers have helped increase rental costs.) I've also always thought there should be tax credits and/or deductions, over and above charity, when individuals or corporations make investments into the public good which would prevent the need for public spending on common shared items such as schools, roads, digital infrastructure and public housing. Being a good corporate citizen should be rewarded, and not being one - should be ridiculed. If they have instead helped contributed to the detriment of a community, it should be called out.
For Perkins it's "How dare anyone remind them of what they have wrought?"
I say, How dare we not, at the risk of their causing even more severe damage.
Vyan