In today’s WSJ, economics professor Adam Lerrick observes that we are approaching a “tipping point” where there will be more Americans dependent on the government for income than Americans who aren’t. Read his piece here.
As Murray Rothbard used to say, Marx was right about class warfare, but got the classes wrong. It isn’t capitalists versus workers, but tax payers versus tax consumers. The proportion of the former has been steadily shrinking since the 1930s. What happens when the people who work and produce wealth outnumbered by and at the political mercy of those who don’t? Some of them are apt to coast on accumulated wealth, putting it into yachts and tax-free bonds. Capital will flee to avoid high taxation, leaving less and less to be politically distributed to the demanding constituencies of the governing party. Britain of the 60s and 70s presents a vision of our future. It’s not a pretty picture.