America, Inc.

RE: "How to Lose Readers (Without Even Trying)"

To Sam Harris: Sorry to hear that people pushed back against your article on taxing the wealthy. Reading your blog, though, it feels like you still want them to get it… to understand the value of supporting the society in which they do business. You might as well give that up. Even if they DID get it, they’d argue against a fair, supportive society. That society creates a difficulty environment for someone to gain advantage over others and thus profit. And that’s not how they made their millions and billions of dollars, now is it? 

To reach the wealthy, we must appeal to their gold-plated sensibilities. Forget their human side for a moment and hit them in the coin purse. Ask them HOW all their wealth has value. Not WHAT, but HOW. They want to talk about WHAT they have and WHAT the government takes away. But HOW does all that stuff have worth to begin with? Is there something about the green ink they use to print those millions of dollars that makes them so damn great to have? What cosmic force unites the various business sectors and private investors to create an economy in which those businesses thrive? 

People of wealth are too far removed from the perceptual framework of survival. It’s more difficult for them to take a step back and see the foundation upon which they build their empires. We must remind them HOW they are wealthy, over and over again, or they’ll get lost in their profit margins. America has a mixed economy for a reason… 

Eventually, this train of thought leads to the point you want to make, Sam: sustaining society is a good thing. But they must see it from THEIR point of view, not one of a rational human being. We are consumers, investors, and borrowers. The cheaper it is to survive, the more money we consumers have to spend building, traveling, baby booming, or whatever else Americans do when not stressed over their immediate needs. 

The rich will “get it,” but only when you define society as something corporations and businesses INVEST IN to get more return. Maybe even create a bunch of spreadsheets and graphs for them to argue about in board meetings. They’ll identify with that. Investing in “economic infrastructure” is the safest, sanest way to keep money printing in order for wealthy executives to earn. Bubbles burst. Bailouts bite the big one. Better to think ahead. 

I realize that “corporations are people, too,” and in more ways than Mitt Romney will admit to, but you – man of reason, Sam Harris – you cannot treat them as if they’re human beings. They’re not. They’re super humans: brains with multiple arms and multiple voices penetrating our lives, drawing from us in order to sustain themselves. If they’re going to treat us like cattle, at least keep us well fed.

I'm just sayin'...