How Does One Criticize Without Demonizing?
I found a very interesting article on the increasing isolation among many wealthy people from society that had a particularly choice quote:
$1:
It was 1993, during congressional debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement. I was having lunch with a staffer for one of the rare Republican congressmen who opposed the policy of so-called free trade. To this day, I remember something my colleague said: “The rich elites of this country have far more in common with their counterparts in London, Paris, and Tokyo than with their fellow American citizens.”
That was only the beginning of the period when the realities of outsourced manufacturing, financialization of the economy, and growing income disparity started to seep into the public consciousness, so at the time it seemed like a striking and novel statement.
At the end of the Cold War many writers predicted the decline of the traditional nation-state. Some looked at the demise of the Soviet Union and foresaw the territorial state breaking up into statelets of different ethnic, religious, or economic compositions. This happened in the Balkans, the former Czechoslovakia, and Sudan. Others predicted a weakening of the state due to the rise of Fourth Generation warfare and the inability of national armies to adapt to it. The quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan lend credence to that theory. There have been numerous books about globalization and how it would eliminate borders. But I am unaware of a well-developed theory from that time about how the super-rich and the corporations they run would secede from the nation state.
I do not mean secession by physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens from time to time—for example, Erik Prince, who was born into a fortune, is related to the even bigger Amway fortune, and made yet another fortune as CEO of the mercenary-for-hire firm Blackwater, moved his company (renamed Xe) to the United Arab Emirates in 2011. What I mean by secession is a withdrawal into enclaves, an internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well being except as a place to extract loot.
Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension—and viable public transportation doesn’t even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call and a chartered plane to get to the Mayo Clinic, why worry about Medicare?
However, the comment section also offered another important insight:
$1:
People don’t understand there are multiple classes of rich. There are the elites referred to in this article; disconnected, kind of useless; unable to order from a Wendy’s menu. Their money is either inherited or skimmed from huge tubs of other people’s money (think of load fees on union pensions, CDOs, etc.) Deep down they know they are useless which explains why they are such awful people.
Contrast these guys to the productive rich who generate wealth, new technologies and jobs. They make life better for everyone. Think Steve Jobs or the Google/Facebook founders, but don’t forget all the small business owners entrepreneurs in this great country. They are brought up middle class and retain this grounded lifestyle even after they make their wealth.
Don’t put these “nouveau riche” in the same category as the first. And don’t penalize them either.
To this, I would add the larger point that the wealthy are no more homogenous than any other part of society. Canadian business leaders like Peter Munk and Dominic D'Alessandro have expressed concern over the amount of our economy that's owned by foreigners, Melcor's Ralph Young let the Occupy movement squat on his company's property when he could just as easily have them evicted, and the likes of Bill Gates have donated billions to charity. Quite a number of people have earned their riches through hard work and dedication, without turning into selfish narcissists.
So that brings me to my question-how can/should criticism of those part of the "1%" who the main article describes be made without criticizing wealthy people as a whole? That was one issue conservative writer Jonathan Kay had with a recent book by Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks-while Kay found a number of their tax change ideas to be surprisingly good, he was dismayed by the innate dislike that McQuaig and Brooks seemed to have for the rich. Hence I'm wondering how to avoid such an issue.
Any thoughts are of course welcome.