The Rich vs. Politicians

Walter Williams pens this article that should make class-warriors take pause. What has puzzled me for a long time is how lefties love to demonize wealthy individuals in the private sector who have acquired their wealth from voluntary transactions as "oppressors" or "exploiters". Meanwhile, these same lefties turn a blind eye to politicians who accrue power only through the threat (and use) of force, and gladly endorse policies that force people who are doing nobody any harm to do things they don't want to do.

As Williams puts it:

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, with about $60 billion in assets each, are America's richest men. With all that money, what can they force us to do? Can they take our house to make room so that another person can build an auto dealership or a casino parking lot? Can they force us to pay money into the government-run retirement Ponzi scheme called Social Security? Can Buffett and Gates force us to bus our children to schools out of our neighborhood in the name of diversity? Unless they are granted power by politicians, rich people have little power to force us to do anything.

A GS-9, or a lowly municipal clerk, has far more life-and-death power over us. It's they to whom we must turn to for permission to build a house, ply a trade, open a restaurant and a myriad of other activities. It's government people, not rich people, who have the power to coerce and make our lives miserable.