Ideas matter.  In fact history is little more than the introduction and testing of ideas, often violently. But eventually we dismiss, reluctantly, ideas that fail, and develop the ideas that work. For that reason I remain a cynical optimist: I believe that things eventually work out as they should, but I am skeptical of those who think they can direct the outcome.

One of the reasons that we have progressed so far in the last two centuries is the discovery of capitalism which is best defined as the competition ideas.  Capitalism is a bottom up generation of ideas, largely unplanned, like a form of economic evolution.

Efforts to control capitalism from the top defy the competition that is so needed.  Credentialed elites try to avoid the waste of competition but are unable to coalesce the knowledge from the broad base of consumers and innovators. While the credentialed can know more about anything than the larger population, they cannot know more about everything than the population. They misjudge the unseen that competent economists respect.

Capitalism works best when power and knowledge converge.  Central planners have the power but lack the knowledge. This is how thousands of financial over seers missed the financial collapse.

Large estates often dissipate within a few generations because the inherited wealth is quickly transferred to the new players, often painfully, with the knowledge and power to develop it.  Those who believe in the social justice of redistribution should just chill; it usually takes care of itself.

The war against the wealthy seeks to separate power from knowledge. If successful we all suffer.

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