After reading this title you may say, well, he is probably gone crazy.
I make the case here that there should be a political party to promote rich people, or at least have policies to make everybody rich.
In the upcoming Toronto Centre by-election, the race seems to be between two journos turned politicians, one is ranting against »billionaires » (I don’t even know many billionaires there is exactly in this riding) and the other is doing this old zero-sum fallacy that a »rich » is »rich » because someone of the »middle class » is poorer. I know, I know, Freeland’s analysis is less simplistic than that but I am sure you get the point.
What is also funny is that those candidates are not working or even middle class, but rather people who got access to perks that very few people of the »middle class » have access. For example, no doubt that many people of the »middle class » do not have the opportunity to interview world leaders at the Davos Economic Forum like Freeland had in the past or to live in a gazillion cities around the world for your job. If else, considering her humble origins, Freeland makes the case that we are living in a meritocratic system which someone is judged not on where he comes from, but rather on what he can do.
You will say, well, it’s impossible to make everybody rich. Think again, as having money is one thing but what you can do with your money is another thing. Things reserved for the elite only a few decades are now accessible to people with limited means. For example, only 40 years ago plane travel was something reserved for an elite and only universities had super-computers, when today, it’s possible to have access to technology, knowledge and amenities that very few people could even imagine decades ago not even for the 100 richest people in this planet.
Another example? Take superior education, anyone who only a decade ago that would thought that a top notch American university would give a few of their courses online at no charge would have been labelled an heretic. Possibly that in a few years, we will have complete degrees online.
Perhaps that after all, instead of thinking that »everybody should be in the middle » should be a »progressive » policy, could we say that putting everybody in the top should be the »progressive » policy to follow whatever you are a plumber or a venture capitalist. We don’t need another do-gooder »champagne socialist » who talks about proletarians (or the middle class) like they were zoo animals to study, we rather need more aspiration fighters in politics or in anywhere else for this matter. We don’t need middle plumbers or middle construction workers, we need top plumbers and top construction workers.
Agora 