The same issue of Commentary features the following observations (subscriber link) from Francis Cianfrocca, a New York businessman and investor:
The United States is organized on the principle of the consent of the governed. Power and legitimacy do not flow from the state to the people, but the other way around. In this respect, what individuals do is entirely their own business, just so long as they do not violate the law or the sovereignty of other citizens. Generating wealth is therefore no different from any other private human activity; it is and should remain private, outside the reach of government, until the point at which it impinges on others.
This is a philosophical understanding of American society with which Obama and his policymakers are not in immediate sympathy. They are not opposed to wealth generation; nothing they say indicates any such thing. But they do not see it as a private activity. Rather, they see it as a human endeavor that can and should be harnessed to aid in producing the social changes they believe are most beneficial for the greatest number of people. In the view of the Obamaites, private wealth is not a bad thing, but neither is it a good thing; it is only good if it can be used in furtherance of large-scale public goals.
But this understanding is deeply flawed, because it fails to take into account the factors that motivate the generation of wealth. Those who work to get rich are not doing so because they are seeking to provide enhanced tax receipts for the government, or to make it easier for government to do what elected officials and unelected bureaucrats think is best. They are, rather, fulfilling basic human desires?to excel, to succeed, to best the other person, to show the old man. Those desires provide the drive. The drive provides the wealth. The wealth provides the ancillary benefit for others. And the act of wealth creation itself creates opportunities for others. Americans pursue business and wealth for their own reasons, and we should be deeply hesitant to throw those out with the proverbial bathwater. The unintended consequences of such action could be catastrophic.
Even when the results aren?t catastrophic, they?re often bad.
