10-11-2011, 04:36 PM
$tevie wrote:
"The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right."
Damn commie.
The Constitutional Convention worked hard to avoid establishing a hereditary aristocracy. Today, the concentration of wealth, and the concurrent manipulation of the system to keep that wealth among the same set of players while deliberately suppressing the financial power of the non-wealthy is in effect defacto hereditary aristocracy.
And here's Jefferson, recognizing the threat and explaining how to prevent this 200 years ago.