By Mark W. Fowler

“I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.” ―Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The rational observer notes that public opinion is easily swayed by politicians. We no longer live in an age where influential politicians have the intellectual heft of Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, or Lincoln, who lent clarity of thought and gravitas of moral insight to public discourse. Rationality, morality, and mental clarity are too often overshadowed by self-serving narcissists whose goal is not to enlighten or inspire the public but to whip the public into a perpetual state of anxiety or, worse, envy.

By perpetually harping about “billionaires who don’t pay their fair share of taxes,” politicians incite envy in the minds of those whose votes they seek. This column has noted before that income tax rates are such that the top 1% of wage earners have an annual salary of over $750,000 and pay on average over $230,000 (30%) of their income. By contrast, a single-wage earner making $32,000 will pay $3,641 in federal income taxes (11%).

The bottom 50% of wage earners pay only 3.5% of the total income taxes, while the top 50% of wage earners pay over 95% of the total income taxes. The tax inequality meme is recirculated every election cycle for the sole purpose of creating envy in voters. Congress, not billionaires, writes the tax codes. If it’s broken, fix it and stop talking about it. That will never happen, of course, so long as politicians can campaign on it.

Politicians also declaim about income inequality, pointing out that “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.” Neither of these is entirely true. Thomas Sowell, an economist of esteem, notes that only 3% of the individuals defined as poor remain poor for long. Most of those at the bottom rung of the ladder accumulate wealth, obtain work experience, and move into the middle class. Likewise, those on the list of the richest people in any category at any time will not be on that list all their lives, or in most cases as long as 10 years. From 2010 to 2020, only four of the top 10 wealthiest individuals remained on the list, and six new names reached that mark.

None of these individuals achieved billionaire status by robbing the poor. For the most part, they gained their wealth by offering for sale to the public things the public wanted. Just a few years ago, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Space X, and Walmart were unheard of. Now they are household names.

Envy is the “root cause” of the call for reparations for blacks. The fatuousness of reparations can be summed up by reducing it to its essence: A demand for payment to those who were never slaves by those who never owned slaves. Its moral vacuity is revealed by its exclusion of those who were indentured servants, native Americans, Chinese, Italians, Poles, Jews, or Irish, all of whom were subject to vicious and persistent discrimination.

Finally, envy is behind student debt forgiveness. Those clamoring for debt forgiveness claim that students with such debt cannot buy cars or houses or move on with their lives. In effect, the student debtors are envious of those whose have paid their debts and moved on with their lives. That debt does not disappear. Rather, it is transferred to taxpayers who did not benefit from the loan, did not agree to the loan, and will now have to pay for the loan. This was done to buy votes.

Of envy, Gaius Sallustis Crispus said, “They envy the distinction I have won; let them, therefore, envy my toils, my honesty, and the methods by which I gained it.”

Mark Fowler is a board-certified family physician and former attorney. He can be reached at [email protected].