As they accumulate more and more wealth, the very rich have less
need for society. At the same time, they've convinced themselves that
they made it on their own, and that contributing to societal needs is
unfair to
them. There is ample evidence that this small group of
takers is giving up on the country that made it possible for them to build huge fortunes.
Photo: luna715/cc/flickr1. They've Taken $25 Trillion of New Wealth While Paying Less Taxes
The 2013
Global Wealth Databook shows that U.S. wealth has increased from $47 trillion in 2008 to $72 trillion in mid-2013. But according to
U.S. Government Revenue figures, federal income taxes have gone DOWN from 2008 to 2012. Even worse, corporations
cut their tax rate in half.
American society has gained nothing from its massive wealth expansion. There's no
wealth tax, no
financial transaction tax, no way to ensure that infrastructure and public education are supported.
Just how much have the super-rich taken over the past five years?
Each of the elite 5% -- the richest 12 million Americans -- gained, on average,
nearly a million dollars in financial wealth between 2008 and 2013.
2. For the First Time in History, They Believe They Don't Need the Rest of Us
The rich have always needed the middle class to work in their factories and buy their products. With globalization this is
no longer true. Their factories can be in China, producing goods for people in India or Europe or anywhere else in the world.
They
don't need our infrastructure for their
yachts and helicopters and
submarines. They pay for private schools for their kids, private security for their homes. They have
private emergency rooms to
avoid the health care hassle. All they need is an assortment of servants, who might be guest workers coming to America on
H2B visas, willing to work for less than a middle-class American can afford.
The sentiment is spreading from the super-rich to the merely rich. In 2005
Sandy Springs,
a wealthy suburb of Atlanta, stopped paying for most public services,
deciding instead to avoid subsidizing poorer residents of Fulton County
by hiring a "city outsourcer" called
CH2M
to manage everything except the police and fire departments. That
includes paving the roads, running the courts, issuing tickets, handling
waste, and various other public services. Several other towns followed
suit.
Results have been mixed, with some of CH2M's clients backing out or
renegotiating. But privatization keeps coming at us. Selective decisions
about public services threaten to worsen already destitute conditions
for many communities.
Detroit, of course, is at the forefront. According to an Urban Land Institute
report, "more municipalities may follow Detroit's example and abandon services in certain districts."
3. They Soaked the Middle Class, and Now Demand Cuts in the Middle-Class Retirement Fund
The richest Americans
take the greatest share of over
$2 trillion in Tax Expenditures, Tax Underpayments, Tax Haven holdings, and unpaid Corporate Taxes.
The
Social Security budget
is less than half of that. Yet much of Congress and many other wealthy
Americans think it should be cut. These are the same people who deprive
the American public of
$300 billion a year by not paying their full share of the payroll tax.
4. They Continue to Insist that They "Made It on Their Own"
They didn't. Their fortunes derived in varying degrees - usually big degrees - from
public funding, which provided almost half of basic research funds into the 1980s, and even today supports about 60 percent of the
research performed at universities.
Businesses rely on
roads and seaports and airports
to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department
of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power
their factories, communications towers and satellites to conduct online
business, the Department of Commerce to promote and safeguard
global markets, the U.S. Navy to monitor
shipping lanes, and FEMA to
clean up after them.
Apple, the
tax haven specialist, still does most of its product and
research
development in the United States, with US-educated engineers and
computer scientists. Google's business is based on the Internet, which
started as ARPANET, the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects
Agency computer network from the 1960s. The National Science Foundation
funded the
Digital Library Initiative
research at Stanford University that was adopted as the Google model.
Microsoft was started by our richest American, Bill Gates, whose success
derived
at least in part by taking the work of competitors and adapting it as
his own. Same with Steve Jobs, who admitted: "We have always been
shameless about stealing great ideas."
Companies like Pfizer and Merck have relied on basic research performed at the
National Institute of Health. A Congressional Budget Office
study reminds us that
The
primary rationale for the government to play a role in basic research
is that private companies perform too little such research themselves
(relative to what is best for society).
5. As a Final Insult, Many of Them Desert the Country that Made Them Rich
Many of the beneficiaries of American research and technology have
abandoned their country because of taxes. Like multinational companies
that rationalize the move by claiming to be citizens of the world,
almost
2,000 Americans, and perhaps up to
8,000, have left their responsibilities behind for more favorable tax climates.
The most egregious example is
Eduardo Saverin,
who found safe refuge in the U.S. after his family was threatened in
Brazil, landed Mark Zuckerberg as a roommate at Harvard, benefited from
American technology to make
billions from his 4% share in Facebook, and then skipped out on his tax bill.
An Apt Summary?
Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot and member of the Forbes 400, had
this to say about any American who might object to all the greed: "Who gives a crap about some imbecile?"
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut
Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational
websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the
editor and main author of "
American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.
Journeyman Pictures
