from Mona Charen at National Review, How Bernie Sanders Became the Conscience of the Democratic Party [1]
The idea that “the rich” sit permanently atop a pyramid of worker drones is false. Consider the companies that were once ubiquitous but are now ailing or gone: The Sharper Image, Borders, Circuit City, Polaroid, Yahoo!, Sears, and Toys-R-Us. Creative new competitors take their places. A U.S. Treasury study in 2006 found that among taxpayers in the highest brackets in 1996, 30 percent had dropped below that ten years later, with 2.6 percent dropping all the way to the bottom. Among those in the lowest income quintile in 1996, more than half had moved up ten years later.
A dynamic economy grows out of respect for free markets, willingness to take risks (which includes tolerance for failure), reliable protection of property rights, future focus, light regulation, and openness to ideas. These traits traditionally made the American economy the most innovative in the world. From aeronautics to computers to medical equipment to energy to retailing to entertainment, U.S. creativity has produced the world’s most prosperous middle class. We still lead the world in patents, and we’re still inventing new business models like Uber and AirBnB. But we’ve layered so many stones onto the shoulders of businesses that the engine of innovation is slowing. For the first time since the 1970s, more businesses are dying than being born. In 2000, the U.S. ranked second in the world in economic freedom according to the CATO Institute. Now, we’ve dropped to 16th.
Contra Sanders, we’ve been smothered in quasi-socialism for the past six years. The U.S. economy desperately needs a shot of capitalism and growth. The middle class stagnates and poverty increases. The rich, as in Venezuela, Cuba, and Sweden, are making out fine in Obama’s America. It’s the middle class and the poor who need capitalism to lift them.