Charles Murray discusses with Mary Kissel of the Wall Street Journal the many problems created by rampant cronyism in the American economy.
KISSEL: You’re blaming the 1 percent, why?
MURRAY: Yeah, to a great extent. I’ll give you some examples: the 25,000 square foot homes, the private jets, but more than that, the sense that a lot of Americans have that the game is rigged now. And the problem is, a lot of that is true.
KISSEL: But Charles, we’re a capitalist society, what’s rigged? I mean, if you make a lot of money, what is wrong with building a big home or owning a private jet? We would support that on the editorial page.
MURRAY: There’s a couple of things, one is that it’s an American tradition that you don’t get too big for your britches once you get rich.
KISSEL: I thought that was a Social Democratic tradition in Britain or Australia. The tall poppy syndrome.
MURRAY: No, that was very capitalist, that you were one of the people once you got successful. That’s not nostalgia, that’s true. Back in the 1960s or 50s, when I was growing up, the executives of the Maytag company, in the town where I lived, wouldn’t buy Cadillacs, that was getting too fancy, too flamboyant.
There’s another thing that’s going on, Mary, which is even bigger: capitalism in bed with the government. Big time. The American people look at the way people make zillions of bucks because they can get the regulations they want to, because they get the government to support their technology. They see that going on, plus the crony capitalism. And the number of these capitalists are enthusiastically in favor of real competition is depressingly small.
KISSEL: Alright, but when the Democrats say the game is rigged, I’m thinking of Massachusetts Senator Liz Warren, this is a theme she uses all the time. She’s not talking about less regulation, she’s talking about more.
MURRAY: Yeah, yeah. I have no truck with the Warrens of the world. I’m actually speaking as someone who loves competition and free enterprise. And I’m saying to the people who are supposedly on my side, you guys better practice what you preach. Because a lot of you aren’t.
KISSEL: Do you think that the Occupy Wall Street movement on the left, and the Tea Party on the right are both reactions to that same thing, that kind of cronyism?
MURRAY: It’s the same thing, there is a new upper class no that is increasingly really happy being a new upper class. They have left behind the American tradition of saying hey, we’re just folks. They are, actually, rather enjoying the position. It’s Un-American, Mary.