A warning about the ‘billionaire tax’ — from 200 – Latest News
The “billionaire tax” is a unhealthy socialist concept that’s already centuries previous.
In truth, the first warning about the tax got here 200 years in the past from a French traveler — Alexis de Tocqueville.
Tocqueville was fascinated by the United States. He admired its power and optimism, which he believed France, and Europe, had misplaced.
The class warfare, division, and hatred that unfold by way of Europe — together with the concepts of Karl Marx, who was Tocqueville’s up to date — had not but reached the U.S.
Tocqueville explored the nation and wrote a celebrated treatise, Democracy in America, which continues to be studied right this moment.
Tocqueville did more than file his observations about America during what was referred to as the Era of Good Feelings.
He additionally developed theories about what made democracy work.
Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, speaks in Los Angeles in February 2026. AFP through Getty Images
He knew that all through historical past, the strongest argument in opposition to democracy was that poor people, being better in quantity, would vote to grab the property of the wealthy.
“In the United States,” Tocqueville wrote, “where the poor rule, the rich have always something to fear from the abuse of their power.”
Moreover, he knew that democratic authorities risked financial wreck, as a result of the poor would vote for “extravagant” authorities spending on themselves.
In “some of the democratic republics of antiquity,” Tocqueville noticed, “…the public treasure was exhausted in order to relieve indigent citizens,” in addition to for public leisure.
To keep away from anarchy, and financial collapse, Tocqueville proposed two options.
First, he argued, democratic societies needed a sturdy center class, which owned property, such that “every man shall have something to keep and little to take from others.”
A sturdy center class would additionally keep authorities spending in test: “The extravagance of democracy is less to be dreaded … in proportion as the people acquire a share of property.”
Second, he stated, energy could possibly be exercised by representatives of the people, quite than instantly the people themselves.
A republican kind of authorities, wherein people elect representatives, may help mood the passions of the majority — no less than for a whereas.
Fast-forward to California in 2026.
The billionaire tax can also be being determined by referendum — not by our elected representatives. AFP through Getty Images
A union representing authorities staff has gathered signatures to put a “billionaire tax” on the poll.
This isn’t like different taxes. It would seize some of the property of the wealthy.
It is often the variety of concept that Californians would reject.
We don’t hate the wealthy. Most of us work for them, admire them, and hope to affix them — in Silicon Valley, or in Hollywood.
But we’ve got additionally misplaced a lot of our center class. The burden of taxes and rules has fallen heaviest on owners, small business house owners, and professionals.
They have been leaving, for no less than a decade.
The billionaire tax can also be being determined by referendum — not by our elected representatives, who often think about tax payments first.
The people as a entire — 99.9% of whom aren’t billionaires — will determine whether or not to take the property of the different 0.1%.
Sign up for the California Morning Report e-newsletter
California’s high information, sports activities and leisure delivered to your inbox day by day.
Thanks for signing up!
That is the situation Tocqueville warned us to keep away from.
It results in instability and battle. It results in financial collapse. And that, finally, results in tyranny.
Tocqueville needed America to succeed as a result of he needed freedom to succeed.
Yet to make the case for freedom, he needed to argue that democracy was not solely a honest kind of authorities, but additionally a more profitable one.
California has all the time been blessed with natural wealth. Gold, oil, wealthy soils, and ample sunshine.
But what made California the wealthiest society in the world is a system of legal guidelines that protects what we create, earn, and grow.
It is straightforward to overlook that. A state as stunning as ours lends itself to dreaming.
And all of us dream of a world that’s honest, and simply, and the place no one lacks something.
Yet Tocqueville reminds us that if we abuse our democracy to grab property, we are going to destroy what makes all Californians more affluent and free.
Joel Pollak is the opinion editor of the California Post.
Download The California Post App, observe us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters
California Post News: Facebook, Instagram, TikTookay, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedIn
California Post Sports Facebook, Instagram, TikTookay, YouTube, X
California Post Opinion
California Post Newsletters: Sign up right here!
California Post App: Download right here!
Home supply: Sign up right here!
Page Six Hollywood: Sign up right here!
