If Atlas shrugs sooner rather than later, we can thank politics-of-envy columnists like E.J. Dionne:
Those at the top of the heap are falling far short of the standards set by American ruling classes of the past. As John Judis, a senior editor at the New Republic, put it in his indispensable 2000 book "The Paradox of American Democracy," the American establishment has at crucial moments had "an understanding that individual happiness is inextricably linked to social well-being." What's most striking now, by contrast, is "the irresponsibility of the nation's elites."
Those elites will have no moral standing to argue for higher taxes on middle- income people or cuts in government programs until they acknowledge how much wealthier they have become than the rest of us and how much pressure they have brought over the years to cut their own taxes.
Your money is our money. Give it to us now, and we will be happy. We deserve it. You will burn in hell for having it.
