Doormats for Millionaires and Billionaires

by

John J. Dunphy

This column originally appeared in The Telegraph of Alton, IL back in 2015. It’s still relevant, however, since many non-wealthy American CONTINUE to support cutting taxes for the wealthy. Why do such Americans willingly volunteer to be doormats for the wealthy? I address that question in this column.

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• Trickle-down economics doesn’t work. While its proponents claim that giving the wealthy endless tax cuts will encourage our nation’s millionaires and billionaires to invest in businesses that strengthen the American economy and create new jobs, study after study has shown that economic growth actually slows under trickle-down economics. Increased investment doesn’t occur and new jobs aren’t created. Trickle-down economics excels, however, at creating a huge national debt while making the wealthy even wealthier at the expense of the middle class.
• It just makes sense that the wealthy heartily endorse trickle-down economics, but why does it have the support of so many of the non-wealthy? Here are some possible reasons.
• Too many Americans have been programmed by the right-wing media to believe that any criticism of trickle-down economics, however mild and well-intended, is nothing less than a call for socialism. Since it’s vitally important for these people to be seen by others — and to see themselves — as patriots, even those who barely scrape by on a low fixed income will continue to support tax breaks for the wealthy. As they see it, to do otherwise would be to open themselves to the charge of being socialists or communists.
• A second reason why so many Americans have volunteered to become doormats for the rich can be found among so-called “values voters.” If Republican senators or congressmen who support trickle-down economics consistently vote against gay rights and reproductive freedom of choice for women, values voters — no matter how low their incomes — will march to the polls and vote for them on election day.
• Still another reason can be found in the current popularity of the objectivism philosophy of Ayn Rand, who built a career for herself by becoming a shill for laissez-faire capitalism, which is simply trickle-down economics on steroids. Although an atheist, Rand nonetheless regarded the wealthy as something akin to gods and contemptuously dismissed the non-wealthy as “parasites,” who owed their very existence to the rich. Rand’s idolization of the wealthy and belief that they occupied the apex of society by virtue of their superiority over the non-wealthy closely resemble the philosophy of Social Darwinism, which maintains that in any society the superior naturally triumph. To hinder the strong as they rise to power or to assist the weak as they are trampled underfoot by those who are more intelligent and resourceful is morally wrong because one is interfering with the natural order of things.
• It’s genuinely disturbing that so many non-wealthy Americans have bought into this malicious nonsense. Objectivism and Social Darwinism aren’t merely bad economics. They’re completely inimical to the vision most of us have of the United States. We’re a nation that values compassion and empathy. We’re not a nation that believes the non-wealthy deserve to be trampled into the dust.
• The fourth reason I believe that the non-wealthy support trickle-down economics lies in their hope to join the super-rich in the near future. When that happens, they too will want to pay as little taxes as possible. Why change an economic system that is designed to favor the wealthy if there’s a good chance they will someday be a position to benefit from it? I almost have to admire such optimism.

John J. Dunphy owns The Second Reading Book Shop in Alton, IL. He is the author of “Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials” and “Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois.”