Excessive Wealth

Bill Gates became a billionaire cooperating with the government. Marc Rich became a billionaire working contrary to the government. Either way, excessive wealth cannot be gained without government intervention. Click to read on...

I define excess wealth as more than you can handle yourself, or your family if you are so situated In natural law, what you work becomes yours: your land, your tools, your live- and rolling-stock, and so on. As the government grew exponentially in the 1970’s and 80’s and 1990’s, Gates sold software that was issued to every government worker.

As a customer, the government is a strange, unnatural, unhuman creature. What is developed for the government is, well, good enough for government work. Engineers designing to govt spec are not artists designing to human yearnings for the good the true and the beautiful, which is the heart of a free market.

Most of us love the internet. The internet was formed in the 1960’s by a private company, BBN, when such a proposition was illegal, unless perhaps, the Defense Department is behind it, as was the case. The government wanted a resilient communications system to network research computers.

If the internet had any value, it would have evolved in a free market. The phone system was put in lock down in the 1920’s, and in this managed milieu the internet was formed. Yet there are countless people who believe, if it were not for the government, or in the favorite phrase “funding basic research” we would not have the internet, nor anything else good for that matter. The fact is without govt intervention we’d have better and it would cost less.

Most large technology companies are monstrous distortions of what would be, as are their products. Cisco fed the phone companies, Oracle started as a CIA database project, Sun microsystems built computers for govt data analysis, Ross Perot became a billionaire computerizing Pres. Johnson's welfare plantations.

Since their products have no relation to natural customers, what they offer is very bad. Operating systems that provide net loss of productivity, applications that cost too much to do too much, a business model that fails to distribute scarce resources rationally, and a fundamental architecture that is insecure (MSIE announces yet another fix http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7788687.stm for Christmas 2008), and cannot be secured. Spam and fraud are are only 2 clear and present dangers of the web. Proliferation of porn and other vices is the bailiwick of the preacher man, but they are alarmed at what the destruction of families due to internet porn is doing to the collection plate!

For a glimpse of what might have one can observe Apple Computer, whose orientation has been on the consumer, and is informed by the pursuit of the good and the true and the beautiful, as one might expect from a love child/LSD connoisseur such as Steve Jobs. (From the descriptions, some of us already have what LSD offers without tasking the drug, others can benefit mightily from doing so: http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000693.html)

Nonetheless, the government workers issued copies of Microsoft Office or Works or both played all day at making regulations and requiring reports of those who produce and pay taxes. These regulations required reports delivered in MS operating systems. and PCs. Gates became a billionaire since the govt actually buys licenses for software. Those companies and institutions most allied with govt, law, schools insurance, banks, stock markets, medicine, housing, say all big biz, bought the software required to make reports and the usually paid the license fees as well. (Taxpayers foot the bill for “law enforcement” that hunts for software pirates.)

Make-work for government made Gates and many others billionaires, countless millionaires, and innumerable 100,000 -aires. Then the govt did Bill Gates a huge favor in return. The consent decree of 1994: Gates promised to stop his marketing strategy, one inspired by Rockefeller. Now, no one could get rich the way Gates did, since it was illegal. The govt saw to it Gates had no effective competition.

Now Gates and his billions were safe from competition, but competition and innovation was now stalled in USA, like a high flying airplane. Here comes the crash. Gates might lose his billions if left idle and unprotected, so what to do? Form the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation!

The law in USA is the government protects the wealthy from having to be responsible for the wealth they hold. In essence, the government will not tax or otherwise molest the money if they spend 5% a year of of the foundation money on charity. Of course, the balance of the funds are invested and no doubt return better than 5% per year, so the funds grow and live in perpetuity.

Of course, these funds take talented members to manage, such as your family members and wives and children of politicians. That’s the law.

And of course, you can make that 5% by donating to nonprofit think tanks who advocate for your favorite political causes, or some other research or project of your pet interest. That is the law.

The Foundation can donate to a state initiative to impose an inheritance tax on anybody who dies with assets over 2 million, thus destroying small family businesses. A side effect is big city newspapers fold for a reduction of the profitable small and medium business ad revenue. The foundation can then turn around and buy up newspaper assets cheap, further controlling the information flow.

Lest you think there is something terribly undemocratic about all of this, rest assured that such foundations would never fund something that any given sitting congress would not fund. To do so might raise some ire, and as we all know, the power to tax is the power to destroy.

In turn, the government charges taxpayers for the cost of an army of regulators and law enforcement to protect these assets. And if it should come to pass that any of these “charities” lose money, due to some criminality, the govt will step in and make whole the losses. Privately, I do not know how we taxpayers can afford such a system.

In natural law what you can work is yours... There is simply no way the Gates family can manage the billions they received cooperating with the government. They would lose it in weeks if not protected, protection paid for by taxpayers (Yes, Bill Gates pays taxes, but did you notice the point of putting the billions in the trust is not only to protect it, but to avoid being taxed?)

In a free market and natural law excessive wealth, that is to say, more than you can manage yourself gained through unnatural cooperation, is criminal. If we removed the protections and taxpayers subsidies Gates receives, then his $29 billion trust would be exposed. Trying to establish relations, monitor agreements, fight off the competition, he would soon lose what he has, down to what he can manage himself. No doubt Bill Gates can mange much and lead a full life doing it. I would guess he could manage 3 or 4 millions himself! Imagine how the world would beneft if Bill Gates had to go back to supporting his family.

What should he do if tomorrow he learned he no longer enjoys the subsidies and restrictions that protect his wealth... well if he really wants to give it away, let him bail out the USA auto industry!

But what about all of the people in the world helped by the Gates Foundation? None of those people need handouts, they need freedom. Freedom to contract, freedom from oppression, usually in the form of their own governments. They need the benefit of people taking responsibility, and a system that holds people accountable for their actions. Then they would take care of themselves. Also, in a free market, it is clear who is in a true disaster, so charity becomes all the more immediate. Also, tin a free market there is far more people with more to share with those in distress.

I am not against people earning billions, if they can in a free market. I am against rules that force the rest of us pay for his security and maintenance, and for a system that allows him to keep that which might be more equitably distributed through free market transactions to higher and better use than is dreamt of even in Gates’ philosophy.

People say getting rid of these structures would lead to chaos. But we have chaos now. We have a system is falling apart, although this point is unimportant, since so few people actually benefit from this system. If the powers that be want peace and prosperity, there is an easy route to that goal. The powers that be wish to keep their power base intact, so they will sell our futures and our children's to keep their system going.

The Sikh, the orthodox Jews, the Amish decided long ago to have none of it. They expressly reject government in their lives. I agree with their sentiment, but not their response. There is still much creative work to be done in philosophy on how to operate a business in this milieu, and how to work towards truly free markets, grounded in natural law.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post