All of Us, Under the Spell

I want to be rich. Don’t you? More money may mean more problems, but oh, such problems. A below-ground, heated swimming pool…a well-engineered European car…a place to vacation in the summertime…who doesn’t want that? Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven, but I, for one, am willing to bet that I’d be one of the ones that squeezed through. I’d be a good rich man. I wouldn’t flaunt my wealth. I would appreciate it, and I would share it.

But I want it. Oh, I want it.

Observers get confused when people of modest means sometimes vote to give rich people tax breaks, but the reason for this is readily apparent: I hope to become rich someday. When that day comes for me, I want to keep my money. So why would I screw myself over by taxing the person I hope to be someday? Tax cuts for the wealthy, all around!

It’s an optimistic look on life. The optimism depends not on the opportunities I have, but on my perception of those opportunities; so long as I think I’ve got a good shot, I’m in favor of helping rich people because I might soon be them.

This can’t go on forever, though, because we’re not delusional enough to let it. At a certain point, the possibility of becoming rich shrinks to a critical point, and no longer outweighs the overwhelming empirical evidence that I’ll always be poor. This tipping point happens when the laws of society become so unjust in favor of rich people that I no longer feel I have any chance at all; I work as much as I can, but I can’t afford the nice dental insurance I need for the interview for that big promotion. Besides, the interview is someplace not accessible by public transportation, and I had to give up my car because gas is too expensive. Looking to the future, I won’t even be able to afford to send my kids to a good college so that they can do better for themselves and then maybe let me move in with them. The possibility of being rich shrinks slowly to nothing.

At this point, I become a Socialist. After all, if I have to give up the dream of being rich, I’m sure not going to allow myself to stay poor if I can help it. Forced redistribution of resources starts to sound pretty good when you know you’re always going to have nothing. At the very least, at this point I consider voting for a Democrat.

I think this tipping point happened in America once in the twentieth century, during the Great Depression. I wonder how long it will take for it to happen again. I think that the repeal of the estate tax, the tightening of bankruptcy rules, and the endless tax cuts that benefit the wealthy have us heading toward the tipping point, but we might still have a long way to go. The dream of potential wealth is still so strong in all of us. The people who run our government are also very good at promising us “ownership,” “freedom,” and appealing to our “values,” thereby giving us new things to hope for besides just being rich.

It’s an awful lot to hope for. But I do want it all. I wonder if the men in charge realize this: I want what they’re promising, all of it. The perfectly moral society, where every human being is respected and treated well, not because the government forces us to do that, but because we’re so good that we do it on our own. The wealth, so that I, too, can pass on my millions to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The ownership, so that I can make a fortune on the stock market with my pension, just like Warren Buffett. I want it all. In my dreams, I have it already.

I know, deep down, that the odds are too long, and the greatest likelihood is that I will never see the money in real life that I see in my dreams. But at this point, the dream is still too seductive to resist. And that’s what we are today, in America, with our ridiculous personal debt rate and our overvalued real estate: we’re a nation seduced into our dreams.

At some point, though, we’ll just wake up. The scales will tip, and people will vote to bring back the death tax and outlaw Walmart. A Republican Senator will address the Democratic National Convention to declare that Republicans are no longer a national party because they oppose gay marriage. Some social worker from Seattle will become the iron-willed, financially dubious majority leader of the Democratic House that meets in special sessions to write a law that forces a fundamentalist Christian homeschooler to teach his children evolution. And the circle will remain unbroken…