By Walter Williams
“The Thomas Sowell Reader.” One of his readings, titled “Ivan and Boris — and Us,” starts off with a fable of two poor Russian peasants. Ivan finds a magic lamp and rubs it, and the jinni grants him one wish. As it turns out, Boris has a goat, but Ivan doesn’t. Ivan’s wish is for Boris’ goat to die. That vision reflects the feelings of too many Americans. If all CEOs worked for nothing, it would mean absolutely little or nothing to the average American’s bottom line.
For politicians, it’s another story: Demonize people whose power you want to usurp. That’s the typical way totalitarians gain power. They give the masses someone to hate. In 18th-century France, it was Maximilien Robespierre’s promoting hatred of the aristocracy that was the key to his acquiring more dictatorial power than the aristocracy had ever had. In the 20th century, the communists gained power by promoting public hatred of the czars and capitalists. In Germany, Adolf Hitler gained power by promoting hatred of Jews and Bolsheviks. In each case, the power gained led to greater misery and bloodshed than anything the old regime could have done.
What most people object to is that Boris stole the goat and the milk doesn’t belong to him. He’s pasturing the goat on other peoples land and even expects us to milk the goat.
Now, much as I curse Bill Gates when Windows crashes, I know he deserves what he’s got, and he got screwed by the monopoly charges. But those rich CEOs who do nothing but fly around in their private jets and think of new ways to fleece people don’t deserve a parachute, much less a golden one.
Think Lee Iaccoca. He came with a gun to borrow five thou to build a three thousand dollar car. He sold it to the gullible public for fifteen, and kept thirty million for himself while putting Americans out of jobs. And some asshole had the nerve to say what a great guy he was just for paying me back. Incidently, I never got it back. The government kept it.