Privilege

It's funny how people who use the word "privileged" in a social context are often among the most privileged themselves. The number of rich liberals is by no means small. Perhaps it's out of a sense of undeserved guilt for their money or the misguided notion that the government is the best means of giving to their communities that some of these upper-class leftists espouse things like high taxes or restrictions on commodities.

The problem is that while these elite liberals are busy attempting to give to the "underprivileged," they miss the fact that as "privileged" people (to use their term), they really don't have a great understanding of what it might mean to those they are attempting to help. In a nutshell, these men and women believe that the rich must provide for the poor and that they know what is best for the poor despite not being poor themselves.

This paternalistic attitude is problematic. The recent example of the debate over gun control provides an excellent example. Many wealthy people believe that guns should be more heavily restricted. Through the generosity of a family that lives in my neighborhood, I live in one of the richest neighborhoods in Philadelphia. A house down the street has a sign that basically advocates "common sense" gun laws (read gun control). They are able to do this without consequence because they live far removed from petty crime, or, in fact, crime of any sort.

In a lower-class neighborhood, advertising that you don't like guns is a very, very unwise move. It's kind of like taking a bucket of red paint and using it to write "rob me" on the side of your house. The reason rich leftists don't have to fear the consequences of being anti-gun is because they are effectively isolated from them. They have no experience with crime, so they assume a simplistic solution (take away guns, gun violence goes down). The problem is that, while these privileged liberals remain generally unaffected by changes in gun law, those who do not live in safe suburban environments do not. Sometimes good people live in less than ideal circumstances because they can't afford not to. Guns provide a cheap and easy means of self-defense in these circumstances, and by disallowing ownership of that means, the rich disarm the honest poor and leave the armed criminal element largely unaffected.

What you have to remember is that Newton wasn't shocking because people were shot to death. That happens every day in inner-city areas. It was shocking because the shooter and victims were upper-middle class white people.

The same phenomenon can be applied to economics. Liberals, especially rich ones, espouse high tax rates. That's because they can afford a hike in taxes. They can survive very comfortably on 50 - 90 percent of their income. To a lower-class individual, however, 10% of a paycheck might mean a difference in the number of meals eaten that week.

One might argue that rich liberals only advocate taxing the rich, but that doesn't make it better, because companies use the money they make to develop cheaper technologies that affect everyone. The difference is that a rich person doesn't care about lowered food prices, whereas a poor person does. If companies can spend what they pay in taxes on developing a cheaper grain, that's worth far more than a set welfare check in the long run.

The disconnect between rich and poor has been heavily debated in the media, but generally the conclusions are different than those drawn here. What has been largely overlooked is that many people funding the 99% movement aren't in the 99%. There's a reason for that. Being liberal doesn't mean you understand what it's like to be poor.

In the spirit of honesty, I don't know what it's like to be poor either. The major difference is that I don't advocate economic coercion on behalf of a group I know little about, preferring to stay out of what I can't understand rather than trying to fix it and potentially making it worse. I'm also a lot closer to poor on a sliding scale than upper-class suburban liberals, and while that's not worth much, I think it's worth something. I can honestly tell you I'd rather have cash in the hands of companies like Intel or Google than in the hands of a bunch of politicians, and while I'm sure that not all poor people agree with me, poor people, like every other group of people, are not homogeneous, and I'm sure some do agree with me. I'm looking at them as individuals with agency, not a block of helpless people or potential votes. If rich liberals wish to learn anything, I think the lesson that people are people regardless of income level is the most important one.

Ultimately, of course, I can't say I have all the answers to the economic problems of this country, but then again, neither to rich liberals. The difference is, I'm not pretending that I do.