This article makes some honest points. Self-reflection from one on the “inside”, is always helpful. All humans must guard against our inclination to pull the ladder up after ourselves and our family in the struggle for prosperity.
NICK HANAUER is a Seattle-based serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, author and activist with a knack for identifying and building transformative business models.
In 1995, Hanauer became the first non-family investor in Amazon.com where he served as a Board Advisor until January 2000. During the same time period, he founded and served as CEO of aQuantive, Inc (originally Avenue A Media) and a short time later founded Gear.com. aQuantive was acquired by Microsoft in August 2007 for $6.4 billion, the largest acquisition in Microsoft history, and Gear.com merged with Overstock.com in 2001.
He co-founded Second Avenue Partners in 2000, and he currently serves as a board member and advisor to MarketLeader.com and Qliance Medical Group and is vice chairman of Marchex.
See his recent article: A message from us rich Plutocrats to you little people, by Nick Hanauer:.
“People like me don’t hate Obama because he’s going to raise our taxes, although we hate that plenty. We hate him because his views about the importance and primacy of the middle class diminish our status. The threat he represents isn’t economic; it’s existential. It’s not just our pocket books that are threatened, but, more importantly, our prestige and our influence on this country. Our manhood is at stake.
Facts are for little people.
We plutocrats have a long and proud history of controlling human societies, and the belief systems that we create about how the world works enable us to do that. “Earth is the center of the solar system” was a useful one for us in the past. “Lowering taxes on the rich produces growth” is one of our current favorites. You show me an orthodox belief, and I’ll show you plutocrats who benefit from it.
Without me and my money, you wouldn’t even have a job.
We understand human nature well enough to know that people believe and accept ideas for all sorts of reasons, but rarely because of facts or evidence. Mostly, people believe what suits them, what makes them feel good. And what makes us feel good is a set of beliefs that reinforce our status, privileges and power.”
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Mr. Hanauer’s arrogance and self-congratulation makes him miss the point that the relationship between the rich and the rest of society is symbiotic and not exclusive. The rich become so by skimming wealth (they call it profit) from their enterprises and employees. In a democracy the rich become and remain so at the tolerance of society as a whole. In truth, they become most wealthy when those that they exploit are most wealthy. That’s why Ford initially paid his employees well. So Mr. Hanauer should be more humble lest we all give him a taste of 80% tax rates.
His entire article is a joke, right?
Hooray for Nick Hanauer he thinks he’s a member of the ruling class. It seems he has really bought into Marx’s class society. He may be a rich businessman but he’s ignorant on economics but not as ignorant as Tony above. “skimming wealth (they call it profit)”
shows a total lack of understanding of the functions of profit in enforcing discipline on enterprises in order that they may be productive and not wasteful. Mr. Hanauer has possibly the most to gain from a high tax regimen as he has already made his money and apparently can survive without making anymore. High taxes protect the wealthy and actually do create a class structure as those who are not wealthy are kept down but confiscatory taxation.
First you insult me for my knowledge of economics and then you say taxes are good for the rich. Boy here’s the pot calling the kettle black! Why are the rich always whining and trying to have taxes reduced? When taxes were around 80% in Britain and Sweden where were the cheering rich saying that now they were protected? Unbelievable!
(In case you really don’t understand, my point was for emphasis to counter Hanauer’s ridiculous position, but then yours sounds a bit like that too.)
So if you don’t believe me, here’s what the rich are doing about upcoming tax increases.
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000128848&play=1