In The War Against Accumulated Capital, Christopher Nolan writes:
While most of us pay attention to the various abuses of the regime, the oligarchs themselves don’t care very much.
Indeed, the puppet masters care no more about the regime's abuses (or their own) than the regime cares about its own, or its minions'. Loyalty is all that matters, law is only for those in power to bind their enemies. Pardon the January 6 insurrectionists and anyone who can bribe their way to a freedom that is no longer free. You can always throw them back in if their loyalty wavers or you need a scapegoat or another payout.
Nolan observes this lawlessness is one of a litany of interlocking problems, none of them soluble as long as the current imbalance of wealth and power persists (or worsens, as it continues to do).
I appreciate Nolan's frank talk about this trajectory. When John McCain accused Barack Obama of fostering class warfare in a 2008 debate, Obama deflected, missing a golden opportunity to reply, "I fully agree, we must stop this class warfare that has been waged by the richest against the rest of us!" It has only escalated since then. In true narcissistic fashion, every rich person's accusation of class warfare and wealth redistribution is a confession -- a confession to redistributing $50,000,000,000,000 ($50 Trillion) from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top. From welfare to warfare, from healthcare to vulgarity. This is no longer a matter of "fairness" as Obama framed it; it is a matter of survival, for working families, for democracy, and for our planet.
Absolutely, support for a wealth tax is a litmus test for any candidate for public office. It's that or pitchforks. I remain hopeful we will not have to resort to the latter.
