In 1936, John Maynard Keynes suggested that a fair economic system would lead to “the euthanasia of the rentier, and, consequently, the euthanasia of the cumulative oppressive power of the capitalist to exploit the scarcity-value of capital” – implying that we have a choice between fairness and extreme wealth, and that the two couldn’t peacefully co-exist.
Lurking in the back of the minds of the super-rich, and in the share-price of surveillance/control businesses like Palantir and G4S is the fear that one day, the world will come to realized that Peter Thiel was right when he declared that the “freedom” to be a ruthless exploiter plutocrat was not “compatible” with democracy, and decide to opt for the latter (Theil, meanwhile, seems to plump for the former).
But as wave after wave of revelations come about the impunity with which the super-rich dodge taxes and cram the American worker, the euthanasia of the rentier is gaining traction.
A senior Wall Street exec – anonymous, for obvious reasons – told Vanity Fair’s William Cohan that they feared that passage of the GOP’s tax plan would be the final straw that collapsed the whole Reagonomic, neoliberal consensus and triggered a new growth industry for guillotines. In part, that’s because the plan is so economically incompetent that it will inevitably usher in a horrific recession that will batter the Americans who are still trying to recover from the last finance-industry-triggered econopocalypse, with a new housing crisis, a tax disaster in populous “blue” states like New York and California, a collapse in consumer confidence and spending, and worse.
Other CEOs have gone on the record, calling the Trump plan a “tax cut” not “tax reform” with the super-rich as the prime beneficiaries, and no reason to believe that the cuts will be accompanied by higher wages, better jobs, or more investment in the US.
