The paranoid libertarian and his enemy, the angry liberal

Paranoid libertarians have a favorite (real) enemy: the angry liberal. This was the target of financier Tom Perkins’ notorious letter to the Wall Street Journal. Perkins complained about “demonization of the rich” and suggested progressives might soon inflict a Kristallnacht against one-percenters. Perkins thus exposed himself as a paranoid libertarian—but he is also right that many people on the left are extremely angry at the rich, at Wall Street, at shadowy corporate interests. Occupy Wall Street is the angry institutional counterpart to the paranoid Tea Party.

The angry liberal has distinctive characteristics just like the paranoid libertarian. He is distressed by significant social ills and seeks someone to blame for them. The social ills—inequality, inadequate health care, bad schools—are large ones. But it makes little sense to get angry at rich people for causing them. Most rich people are simply people who chose to go into medicine, finance, or business and then did well as a result of a combination of talent and luck. Others are heirs to family fortunes. The huge level of inequality that currently exists is mostly the result of social trends, not the bad acts of identifiable rich people. Although there are law breakers and other assorted bad guys among the rich who deserve our ire, just as there are among the poor and middle class, it makes no sense to be angry at the rich as a class. We don’t get angry at our friends and relatives who manage to get rich while following the rules. We are more likely to congratulate lottery winners than to condemn them. But then we cheerfully (or angrily) hate wealthy people in the aggregate because they are prospering while others suffer or stagnate.