The War of Wealth dictated by the envy of Democrats

T The Democratic Party let the mask slip a bit last week. Between the comments of new student Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., and a radical proposal by Senator Elizabeth Warren, president of D-Mass., The emerging wing of the Democratic Party has clearly shown that socialism is there to stay.

Ocasio-Cortez clearly expressed his allegiance to socialism, building his entire brand as an intersectional Bernie Sanders 2.0. Last week, she made headlines claiming that a "system allowing billionaires to exist" was immoral, and her political advisor, Dan Riffle, updated her name on Twitter to reflect the new fundamental truth of the far left: "Every billionaire is a failure of politics".

Detecting the Democrat's hype, Warren followed the example of Ocasio-Cortez, adopting his role as a warrior against the rich while she was trying to regain the media's attention after the failed launch of his presidential campaign. Warren has announced a draconian wealth tax that would fine the assets of millionaires and billionaires every year. Then, over the weekend, she decided to take on Dan Snyder, owner of Washington Redskins.

There, Warren yields to this pretense of being "capitalist to the bone" and reveals the true consequentialist drive behind the new Democratic Party: l & # 39; desire.

Although the country has reached a broad consensus that the public must fund non-exclusive and non-exclusive goods and services – such as our armed forces and parks – as well as many services that are considered public investments in our society – such as medical care. research and social protection for the less fortunate and those at risk – both sides struggled to define the extent and role of public spending. Despite all the upheavals within the Republican Party on issues ranging from immigration to health care, the GOP worked roughly in tandem with the intent of public spending.

Democrats, however, have reached an impasse: do they embrace John Rawls's liberalism and seek to improve the nation's financial performance? Do they become diligent consequentialist punishing disparities in wealth even at the expense of society in the long run? wealth?

Given the reactions of Warren and Ocasio-Cortez, it seems that the party has come to adopt the latter.

When the French economist Thomas Piketty makes his entry into the mainstream under the Obama administration with his book Capital in the 21st Century the lost liberals discover one of his grievances with the revelation of contemporary capitalism: returns on investment are more important than returns on wages. This, of course, is anything but exceptional and is a fundamental fact taught in high school economics courses. It now seems that this simple economic fact has led Democrats to develop jealousy-driven policies to target investment, job creators and the rich in the name of equality.

Despite the disdain of Ocasio-Cortez, billionaires are not bankrupts. In most cases, these are political successes. High wages reward the high risks of entrepreneurship, assuming the enormous debt, time and personal responsibility to try to develop or start a business. CEOs and CEOs are responsible for the salaries of all their employees, the repayment of creditors and the satisfaction of investors. The minority of Americans responsible for the employment and economic growth of our country will work perhaps more than 80 hours a week, cashing in every dollar of their business income and trying to come back with two.

Such is simply the nature of economics, an immutable force that can not be taxed out of existence.

But that will not stop the Democrats from trying. Ocasio-Cortez wants to raise the highest marginal tax rates to 70% or more. Warren wants to completely reverse our tax model by punishing capital assets. The two would probably have the same effect seen in California and New York: the rich, en masse, fleeing to greener pastures. Admittedly, the effect may not yet be widespread, but more socialized countries, like France, have seen tens of millions of millionaires flee the country because of wealth taxes.

Rawls' veil of ignorance, which has guided American liberalism over the last fifty years, assesses the morality of a society or system by essentially assessing the well-being of people. results. If you were assigned a social role in a random society, your chances would be pretty good in America today compared to any other place or time. Democrats have tended to justify expanding the role of the government with measures to increase bottom line results. (Although the recent revelation that President Trump's tax cuts paid about about 30% to themselves [indique] that consumers could spend money more effectively as the government.) But the party wing Warren is happy to launch Rawlsianism in the trash and brings back a deliberately Marxist morality.

To be clear, neither the proposals of Ocasio-Cortez nor Warren would fund their favorite projects. Warren's wealth tax would fund exactly 1 / 16th of his government-sponsored health care, in the event that doctors would support a drastically reduced reimbursement rate. But, as Vanessa Williams rightly pointed out by the Brookings Institution, these taxes are conceived of as "a tax of correction, like taxes on tobacco or a tax on carbon, solving the problems created by exploiting capitalism".

The rapidly radicalizing Democratic Party quickly decides that capitalism itself, and not just its results or rules, is immoral.

The other members of the Democratic Party, who strive to define themselves before embarking in 2020, will have to decide: do they care about taxes to invest in the poor or punish them? the rich?