To: Bald Eagle who wrote (11367 ) 4/30/2002 9:19:57 PM From: Neocon Respond to By and large, the masses are not dominated and controlled by the rich. Power is too diffuse, and the rich are busy with their businesses and country clubs. The masses are under the simple exigency of circumstance: they do not have a lot of money to do as they please. Only if you think that it could be otherwise, and that the rich are preventing mass wealth, could one claim that the rich are doing anything nefarious to the masses. Since it seems unlikely that the equalization of wealth would produce millionaires, the masses will always be limited by circumstance. One could make the case that the rich exist to provide jobs, in fact. Most of their wealth is tied up in assets like stocks and bonds, which fund productive enterprise. The rest buys things, thus providing markets for goods and services that might otherwise die out. After all, the wealthy are the one's who commission the great art, sustain the massive wine cellars, and go to tailors. I am sure that the tailor, the vintner, and the painters are glad of the patronage. Without comparative affluence, most of the Caribbean would be even more destitute, for the islands depend on tourism, and thus, for the most part, the upper middle class and rich. Beyond that, the wealthy fund a good deal of the "good works" of the nation. Andrew Carnegie built free libraries throughout the United States; Andrew Mellon essentially donated the National Gallery of Art, including its nucleus collection, to the United States; and the rich give to all kinds of charities beyond cultural foundations, for medical research, scholarships, and many other needs. But finally, the rich are often the one's who took the initiative, and the risks, in creating those industries that have changed the face of the nation, and even of the globe. Insofar as they have been dynamic in their leadership, far from dominating and controlling the masses, they have empowered them, creating jobs and making it possible for someone of even modest income to travel thousands of miles, wear clothing of some comfort and distinction, be entertained at the flick of a button, be freed of drudgery to pursue schooling, instead of being sent to the fields in puberty, and so forth.........
