Below is my column in the Wall Street Journal on the bizarre claim of Gov. Gavin Newsom and others that the Framers would have supported wealth taxes, including the proposed Billionaire’s Tax. It is a claim that seeks to mask the economically unwise with the historically unfounded. The Framers sought to protect property from legislative redistributive impulses. James Madison wrote that the bicameral system, and particularly the Senate, “ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” That does not sound like an ally of Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna.
Here is the column:
Was James Madison the Zohran Mamdani of his time? Gavin Newsom appears to think so. In joining the growing number of Democratic leaders supporting a wealth tax, the California governor claimed that the U.S. Constitution and our Founders were all about wealth distribution: “The system America’s founders built,” he said, “was designed to prevent the concentration of power in a few hands, but we have allowed that concentration to happen anyway, slowly, in plain sight, over decades.”
The only problem with this argument is that it is utterly and demonstrably false. The Madisonian democracy is designed to avoid the concentration of political power, not the concentration of wealth.
The Founders were great believers in capitalism and the free market. In my recent book, “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss the economic philosophy of the Founders in exploring the history and future of this unique republic. This isn’t simply the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence but also the anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations,” which the Founders embraced.
Many of the Founders were themselves quite wealthy, including banker Robert Morris Jr., who was known as the “Financier of the Revolution” and would be a billionaire today.
Our revolution was the first true Enlightenment revolution, heavily influenced by writers such as John Locke, who believed in a natural right to property. That right came not from the government, but from God, and “excludes the common right of other Men.”
That Lockean principle was manifest in George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was a basis for the Declaration of Independence. It extolled “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”
James Madison drafted protections from government seizure of property, including the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which requires compensation for any property taken by the government.
The Constitution not only protects property, but was later amended to allow for income taxes rather than wealth taxes. Far from supporting a wealth tax, the constitutional system referenced by Mr. Newsom makes a federal wealth tax unconstitutional.
Mr. Newsom’s recent endorsement of a national wealth tax was likely meant to blunt the outrage over his opposition to the resolution to create a state Billionaires’ Tax on the coming November ballot.
California has reportedly lost trillions of dollars in the exodus of billionaires and other wealthy taxpayers fleeing the high taxes and class politics of the state. Mr. Newsom knows that this draining of wealth spells doom for his state, which is already grappling with a massive, growing deficit. He offered a curious argument for opposing the state wealth tax: “You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do.”
The argument suggested that most citizens are effectively a captive population to be culled by California leaders, dupes who are unable to escape a state with a deadly combination of some of the highest taxes and highest living costs in the nation.
Unions and others pushed the Billionaire Tax to avoid budget cuts and fund the state’s runaway expenditures, from pension funds to projects such as the infamous high-speed train to nowhere.
To deal with California’s reverse Gold Rush, drafters made the proposed Billionaire Tax retroactive to claw back money from those who have escaped.
The national Billionaire Tax pushed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) seeks to cut off any escape for the wealthy short of leaving the country. When she ran for president, Ms. Warren warned the wealthy that she was coming for “your Rembrandts, your stock portfolio, your diamonds and your yachts.”
Of course, this assumes that the wealthy would be little more than passive prey in a hunt by the Internal Revenue Service. That is precisely what socialists thought in France decades ago, before an exodus from the country that, along with other socialist policies, brought it to near economic ruin. It was later rescinded.
Nevertheless, wealth taxes make for great politics. What is concerning is that, in addition to a wealth tax, Democratic leaders like Ms. Warren are pledging to pack the Supreme Court if they retake power. A packed court with an insistent liberal majority would let the Democrats push through measures that would otherwise be declared unconstitutional, including a wealth tax.
Congress could then gradually lower the level of wealth needed to trigger the tax, opening up the homes and estates of citizens as an untapped reservoir of money for the taking.
“You’re next” could then apply not just to office holders but to property owners in a push to redistribute wealth.
That strategy may well unfold in coming years, but it will be the realization of a Mamdanian, not a Madisonian, system.
Mr. Turley is a law professor at George Washington University and author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Professor Turley is only partially correct. The Constititutional framers would absolutely love the Billionaire Tax. . . . . on Bizarro World, as evidenced by what the framers said upon the founding of America on Bizarro World:
“Taxation without representation is best”–Alexander Hamilton
“Don’t fire until you see Whites in your rifle eyesight”–Patrick Henry
“Liberty must at all hazards be abolished”–John Adams
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the Government to restrain the people; rather, it is an instrument for the Government to control people and punish those who don’t do the Government’s bidding.”–James Madison
“No power on earth, except our Democratic Socialist Government, has a right to take our property from us without our consent, or at least not without due notice.”–John Jay
“The advancement of Governmental Force, Governmental disinformation, and continuous Governmental taxation are the only guardians of true liberty and prosperity.”–Ben Franklin
“A penny stolen from someone else, is one more penny for us.”–Ben Franklin
“Associate yourself with the worst and most perverted of mankind if you esteem your own reputation in our Democratic Socialist Government; for ’tis better to be alone than in righteous company.”– George Washington
I could go on, but I think these famous quotations from America’s founding fathers on Bizarro World will prove to you that they would have loved the Billionaire’s Tax.
The emphasis on money, wealth, and capitalism can not over-rule what started the northern colonies. Religious freedom founded first those reasons for crossing the Atlantic for many in their quest. I submit the turn to Capitalism have been good, but at a cost. And, that cost is unhealthy without restraints of some sort. Unlimited government goes with unlimited economics, for the availability of excessive money fuels excessive government too.
Property tax is wealth tax. It’s already being done, but only for property.
For certain the framers could not have imagined any one person having wealth matching that of 30 million people. The could not have been against what could not, for them, be possible.
It needs to be done for other forms of wealth as an incentive to put the wealth to better uses than as leverage to siphon the wealth from the middle and lower classes.
The US manufacturing giant was created on a 90%+ marginal tax rate. That needs to come back and to force some reality back into evaluating what wealth is. Consider a 5% tax on the $1T Musk claims to be worth. Would Musk find that $950 Billion to be too little to live on? Better yet, would converting that amount of his holdings cause the stock price to collapse as the house of cards it truly is before it can take down the US stock market and the investments of hundreds of millions of people with it?
Frankly, a 5% transaction tax on the transfer of stocks and bonds would be suitable.
No one ever paid 91%. There were many tax shelters available to the wealthy back then. In 1950, the top 1% paid about 11% of all income taxes, contributing to a total federal revenue pool of around $18 billion (nominal).
By 2022, the top 1% paid over 40% of all income taxes, with total individual income tax revenue climbing to roughly $2.6 trillion (nominal).
That is correct. Those “tax shelters” were investing in factory improvements and better wages that made the US a world leading powerhouse and allowed for factory workers to be the sole provider for a family with several children that they could afford to put through college. Those wages are how the middle class could afford to pay the majority of the income taxes.
The Reagan administration ended that. The majority of investment goes to raising real estate prices, cutting worker wages, and building factories in China and Southeast Asia.
While the 1% pays 4X more as a fraction, they earn 1000X more than they did back then.
There is no incentive to do otherwise.
Anyone in Government giving illegals money/Services should be jailed for TREASON!
to kill the Democrat Party
End Federal Aid to THEM!
No more Federal Aid to cities, states, non-profits and colleges
Outlaw Public Unions
BLEED THEM DRY
*. A penny saved is a pence clear.
~. Ben Franklin
Charles Darwin published in 1861.
We need babies and we’ll claim yours legal or not!
I have nothing to do with this in good conscience.
Toodles
How does Turley know this?
*. Does SCOTUS use Grok or Google for its AI opinions? Most likely Google. Grok has superior reasoning ability.
What is Grok’s definition of equal? The Equal Protection Clause does not allow billionaires to be singled out, which would be unequal protection of the taxation laws. According to the 14th Amendment, every citizen must pay the same amount in every form of taxation to live in this country. That’s the equal protection of the laws.
What about the companion document, the declaration and self evident all men are created equal, anon? What does that blabbering mean?
It means all men have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All men may pursue happiness while no outcome is guaranteed. Like you, for instance. You’re an abject failure, unfortunately, but that wasn’t guaranteed by the Constitution. Neither is success.
14th doesn’t apply is what it means. I refuse to explain.
Thanks
The Equal Protection Clause does not allow billionaires to be singled out.
For those of you in Rio Linda, that would be unequal.
😂 an insult.
Actually the “pursuit of happiness” means the right to own property. That right didnt exist in Europe at the time. This began the process of codifying that right.
*. Someone ask Grok about birthright and the 14th reference CRA , 13th, 14th, 15th, other applicable law. Test Grok’s superior reasoning. Obviously Google has popular opinion only and admits it. 😂
Thanks
*. J. Jackson rebukes Justice Thomas as reported by “The Hill”. Clarence no doubt is seriously butthurt considering the source. 😂
LOL.. Jackson couldn’t rebuke a frog.
Clarence is laughing at that fool. Remember she has been taken to the wood-shead by her other women judges.
*. The Senate was split 50/50. VP Shambala Harris put her there. Always remember that. As time goes by the next crop of faux Justices will only degrade.
Actually, just put 9 computers on the platform and ask Google. Input is done by 10 year olds. They don’t read. They have computers read to them. Court closes during power outtages.
The wealthy pay most of the taxes already. Why do people think wealth should be distributed? Money should be earned. America offers a great deal of opportunity.
That’s the point. The left does not want Americans to generate wealth by inventing things, starting companies and the like. They want everyone to be factory workers – except the nomenklatura (them).
Write a check for $150,000 for each member of your household to pay down the national debt.
For Elon Musk that amount is earned in 38 seconds. You may take longer.
The good professor would be overburdened if he had to write a column every time Governor Newsom said something untrue. The Governor’s idea of truth seems to be whatever jives with his political ambitions at any given time. I guess he is just playing out his ideological destiny in today’s Democratic Party.
Voters voting in primary elections need to do your own research.
In my state, there are about 8 primary candidates running in the same party.
The party bosses in DC have only funded TV commercials for 1 candidate they want to anoint as front runner.
This is about as undemocratic as it gets. The top party leaders have chosen their candidate instead letting voters decide.
The party I usually vote for, it’s leaders are great at losing elections. Let the process be democratic. Voters are better at picking winners.
Ranked Choice Open Primaries in every state would solve this problem and be more democratic. Let voters rank every candidate of both parties in one ranked choice open prinary.
Why don’t voters strongly reject Democrats or Republicans violating the U.S. Constitution?
The next president and Congress will be controlled by Democrats. Do you really want a fascist dictator?
Since Trump is totally ignorant of America’s model of government, his supporters should educate him.
James the idiot Carter tried a yacht tax and all those “evil” rich people moved their yachts from Rhode Island to the Bahamas or elsewhere.
These inside the beltway fools really do think we are stupid.
Except John Kerry, he moved his to another State…s/
“I forgot to get napkins. I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.” —Darializa Avila-Chevalier, primary election winner, New York’s 13th Congressional District
https://www.kunstler.com/p/burning-down-the-house-c19
Deportation or worse.
One fact that means serious reform: it’s absolutely impossible for the federal government to uphold their agreements and the bureaucracy is really really bad at solving basic problems.
The federal government’s bureaucracy is really good at making a mountain of a molehill problem. They are great cheerleaders and talkers, but can’t solve basic problems.
Many times even the federal watchdog agencies don’t even understand the problems. They do what’s best for the bureaucrats not what’s best for the American people.
This applies to foreign nations or making the Bush war crimes victims whole again – the bureaucracy literally allows their crime victims to die through inaction, so they can write their own history. Business as usual.
For that reason the USA should stop tampering with its private citizens and foreign nations. They don’t do it well.
There are a number of DSA candidates who have openly stated their hatred of and desire to destroy the US constitution and it’s principles. Should any of these people win election to the House or Senate the republican majority should refuse to seat them due to their obvious inability to take the oath of office pledging to uphold and support the constitution as is required.
I’ve mentioned this before:
My first job, I met a recent immigrant — from Denmark.
Why would anyone voluntarily leave Denmark? Isn’t the US a relative s’hole?
Well, Denmark had instituted a wealth tax. And one year, his uncle’s wealth tax exceeded his entire cash income. There as here, the uncle’s wealth was illiquid, so he had to borrow just to live on.
The next day, the uncle started looking into expatriate life. He pulled his brother and his family over as well.
First, there is no such thing as illiquid wealth. He would have sold whatever it was he would be taxed on and got enough cash to pay the tax, but left the country instead?
Did all of Denmark moved to the US for the same reason?
His wealth was in his BUSINESS. How does one sell a fractional part of one’s business? He did sell his ENTIRE business, when he left the country.
The Founding Fathers only wanted a president powerful enough to correct the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation.
The Founders never wanted a fascist dictator this powerful.
It’s why Congress is listed first under Article One and presidents second under Article Two.
The Founder’s rejected King George III acting like a fascist dictator. They even crested a holiday on July 4!
So the Framers thought the right to keep and bear arms was more important than any rights listed in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments?
Interesting take.
Turley is saying James Madison would oppose Trump’s federal government from owning stock in Intel and other American corporations.
The doctrine of separate corporate personality was still a century in the future when Madison was alive. The corporate forms of the Framers’ era were owned by individuals.
CA no longer has a millionaires ta because too many of the politicians and the SEIU memnbers are in fact multit-millionaires. Evidence Ro Khanna, he who inherited 1/4 of a billion $’s from his father-in-law, and has sheltered his family from all the present and future taxes that CA might pass. It helps when you know what laws are being proposed so ythat you can move your millions before the law si passed. His financial subterfuge and double dealings make Mr. Pelosi look like a piker! And yet he rails against the inequality of the capitalist sytem. He’s like a hypocrite squared!!
Turley claims that a wealth tax is “historically unfounded” and completely alien to the Framers. This is factually false. The Founders did not just support the concept of wealth taxes; they actively voted for and implemented them.
Under the leadership of Founders like John Adams, the 5th U.S. Congress passed the Direct Tax of 1798. This was not an income tax. It was a direct tax levied on the value of real estate, land, and enslaved people. The tax was explicitly progressive—the higher the value of the property, the higher the tax rate. This is, by literal definition, a wealth tax.
During the founding era, nearly every state funded its government through “faculty taxes” and general property assessments. These taxes targeted the value of an individual’s accumulated assets (land, livestock, carriages, and ships), not their annual income.
Also,
Turley quotes James Madison’s Federalist No. 10 to argue that Madison wanted to protect the “opulent minority” from wealth redistribution. Turley completely strips Madison’s broader philosophy of its context.
While Madison feared unstable factions using the government to arbitrarily seize property, he was deeply alarmed by extreme economic inequality. In his 1792 essay Parties, Madison explicitly stated that the government should actively work to prevent the consolidation of extreme wealth. He wrote that the state should achieve this “by defying rules of property to reduce extreme wealth, and raise extreme indigence.” Madison argued for using the law to smoothly reduce inequality—the exact opposite of Turley’s
In a famous 1785 letter to James Madison, Jefferson observed the crushing poverty of Europe and wrote:
“The consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property… Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”
“Geometrical progression” is the 18th-century term for a highly aggressive, progressive wealth tax. Jefferson openly advocated for taxing the rich at exponentially higher rates specifically to break up concentrated fortunes.
Turley attempts to weaponize the Founders as a shield for modern billionaires. He relies on the myth that the American Revolution was fought to protect the hoarding of private capital.
Makes sense…there was a strong current of egalitarianism at the time our nation was formed. The failure to control the borders, and failure to assimilate millions of recent arrivals has undermined that spirit of everyone being equal. We’ve seen a re-stratification, with boutique personal services, healthcare, VIP lounges, personal coaches and agents, and insider trading info. At the other end, we see distinct underclass behaviors such as online sports betting, tattoos, ghetto slang, glorification of weapons, illiteracy, misogyny, expensive hairdos.
I prefer to oblige “give back” from billionaires by letting them decide: pay taxes to the govt. vs. give philanthropically to “HumDev”s (private corporations specialized in Human Development Services). I would raise the charitable donation limit from 50% –> 85%. A private sector of HumDevs will be much more efficient and innovative compared to govt. social service bureaucracies. This idea requires Congress to create a new type of corporation, and tax and estate law tweaks to advance it.
HumDevs is an example of creative conservatism — using ideas about private ownership, equity-accumulation and innovative competition to begin to obsolete the govt. having exclusive ownership of “social services & benefits”.
Though, many conservatives are suspicious of any policy that departs from “laissez faire” or expects the uber-wealthy to give-back. But, the wealthy are OK with give-back — they just don’t see government tax & spend as credible. They could easily warm up to a privatized system of Human Services focussed on US-only human capital.
What’s wrong with giving employees, workers and other associates of profit an equitable share of the proceeds?
Many corporations already do so voluntarily. Elon Musk, e.g., has embraced limited ‘profit sharing’ schemes in the past .. . both earned and unearned.
Still, Elon’s opulent control over the levers of power – and gov. contracts – present a threat to the free market that can only be addressed by strong ‘anti trust’ laws/regs . .. and enforcement of the U.S. constitution.
*extreme wealth disparity is not sustainable.. . even Elon knows that.
Limited is an overstatement. It is doubtful any of his employees have seen a similar meteoric rise in wealth.
I bet you never heard the word HumDevs before today.
Esquire is AI-X bot for sure
AS soon as I started reading Esquire’s “Direct Tax of 1798,” I knew he was referring to a property tax, not a wealth tax.
Esquire a/k/a X is incapable of discerning the difference because, well, after all, we all know why.
What is wealth but what one owns? Property all.
False.
Early U.S. state governments did rely heavily on property taxes (especially land assessments), but it is incorrect to say every state funded itself through faculty taxes and general property assessments.
A few clarifications:
Property taxes (land, buildings, livestock, etc.) were indeed the dominant revenue source in most states for much of the 18th and 19th centuries.
“Faculty taxes” (taxes based on a person’s earning capacity or presumed income) were used in some states at certain times, but they were neither universal nor consistently applied across all states.
States also commonly used:
Poll taxes (flat per-person taxes)
Excise taxes (on goods like alcohol, tobacco, etc.)
Fees and court costs
In some cases, tariffs or trade-related charges (before federal dominance of customs duties)
So while property taxation was broadly central, the idea of a uniform system of “faculty taxes + general property assessments” across all states is not historically accurate.
Your comment is entirely correct on the specific nuance of early American tax history—you are right that the system was not entirely uniform, and that poll taxes, excises, and fees played major roles alongside property assessments.
However, by focusing entirely on the word “uniform,” you are missing the forest for the trees. The historical fact you just conceded completely dismantles Jonathan Turley’s primary thesis.
Jonathan Turley explicitly argued that a wealth tax is a modern, alien invention that is “historically unfounded” and completely antithetical to the Framers’ vision. Yet you just confirmed that “property taxes (land, buildings, livestock, etc.) were indeed the dominant revenue source in most states for much of the 18th and 19th centuries.”
In the 18th century, a person’s wealth wasn’t held in digital stock portfolios; it was held in tangible assets like land, buildings, and livestock. Taxing a person annually based on the assessed value of their accumulated worldly assets is, by definition, a wealth tax.
While you are correct that faculty taxes were not universally applied in every single state, they were heavily utilized in dominant colonies and states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina.
The structural intent behind faculty taxes was explicitly progressive: they taxed individuals (like lawyers, merchants, and artisans) based on their “faculty”—meaning their presumed capability to accumulate wealth and property. The Framers did not view a citizen’s accumulated economic capacity as an untouchable, divine right that the state could never evaluate or tax.
Even if state-level taxes varied, the federal precedent remains absolute. The Direct Tax of 1798—passed by the 5th U.S. Congress and signed by Founder John Adams—was a direct federal tax levied on the value of real estate, land, and enslaved people.
Whether the early American tax system was a uniform mix or a localized patchwork doesn’t change the baseline historical reality. The founding generation routinely levied taxes on what people owned, not just what they earned. Turley’s claim that the Framers viewed wealth redistribution via asset taxation as an un-American concept is a complete rewriting of history, and your own breakdown of early property taxes proves It.
Your argument contains a point that is historically strong, but your conclusion goes further than the evidence supports.
The strongest point is this:
The founding generation was not categorically opposed to taxes on property. States routinely imposed annual taxes on land and other tangible property, and the federal government enacted the Direct Tax of 1798, which taxed houses, land, and enslaved persons. So it is not historically accurate to claim that the Founders believed taxing wealth, in the sense of owned property, was inherently illegitimate.
However, two distinctions remain important:
A general property tax is not necessarily the same as a modern wealth tax. Historically, property taxes typically applied to specific categories of tangible property (especially real estate) and were administered locally. Modern wealth taxes often reach a much broader base, including stocks, bonds, business equity, artwork, intellectual property, and worldwide assets above a threshold. Those differences matter when making historical comparisons.
Taxing property is not the same as endorsing redistribution as a constitutional principle. The fact that the Founders accepted property taxation does not, by itself, establish that they believed government should use taxation to reduce inequality. That requires separate evidence from their writings and legislative practice.
Regarding Professor Jonathan Turley, if his claim is interpreted as “the Founders never accepted taxes on accumulated property,” then the historical record contradicts that proposition. If, instead, his claim is that a modern comprehensive federal wealth tax differs in kind from the taxes known at the Founding, then that is a more defensible historical argument.
So the historical evidence clearly supports this narrower proposition:
The Founding generation routinely taxed property and accumulated assets. Therefore, it is inaccurate to say that taxation based on wealth or ownership was foreign to the Founders’ understanding of government.
Whether that historical fact also justifies a modern federal wealth tax is a separate constitutional and policy question, on which historians and constitutional scholars continue to disagree.
Your comment is incredibly fair, well-measured, and accurately highlights the structural differences between 18th-century tangible asset taxes and a 21st-century comprehensive wealth tax. Kudos.
However, by framing a modern wealth tax as a “difference in kind,” you are overlooking the core macroeconomic principle that connects the two eras. The difference between the 1790s and the 2020s is not a shift in principle, but a shift in how wealth is held.
At the time of the Founding, the primary drivers of the economy—and the main indicators of extreme wealth—were tangible: land, real estate, merchant ships, and livestock. Taxing those specific categories was effectively a comprehensive wealth tax for that era, because intangible financial instruments (like complex stock portfolios, derivatives, and global corporate equity) did not exist.
If the Framers were alive today, they would observe that the modern “opulent minority” does not hold their billions primarily in physical farmland, but in digital shares, corporate bonds, and intellectual property. To argue that we can only tax land because that is what the Founders taxed is a form of originalism that freezes the tax code in 1791 while allowing the modern economy to evolve. Applying the Framers’ principle of taxing accumulated capital today requires reaching intangible assets, because that is where the wealth actually resides.
The Framers were students of history. They knew that every republic before them—from ancient Rome to the Italian city-states—had collapsed because a tiny oligarchy hoarded all the wealth and corrupted the political system. They viewed the regulation of extreme wealth concentration as a matter of national security and republican survival.
This brings us back to Professor Turley. Turley did not merely argue that a modern wealth tax faces administrative and constitutional hurdles—which is a legitimate debate. He explicitly claimed that the Framers built a system meant to protect the concentration of wealth, and he weaponized James Madison as an ally of modern billionaires.
As your own comment acknowledges, the historical record flatly contradicts that premise. The Founders routinely taxed accumulated property. They aggressively passed inheritance laws (like abolishing primogeniture and entail) specifically designed to break up giant dynastic family fortunes.
Whether a modern federal wealth tax is the best policy tool is a valid debate. But we must stop pretending that the American Revolution was fought to ensure a handful of modern billionaires could hoard more wealth than half the American population combined. The Framers understood that extreme economic inequality is the death of democracy, and they left us the legislative tools to prevent it.
AI presenting arguments against itself. Let’s get back to humans talking and exchanging..
False.
Madison did not argue for government actively reducing extreme wealth; he emphasized protecting property rights from factional interference. Jefferson did express concern about inequality and supported measures like limiting inheritance and progressive-style taxation in some correspondence, but not in the strong, modern “wealth redistribution” framing described in the passage.
Billionaires hire millionaires to convince the middle and lower class to be minions for the oligarchs.
Turley is one of those millionaires.
His job is to protect the oligarchs. His main focus is creating divisions and telling the lower and middle class that it is OK to concentrate the majority of the wealth in the nation into as few hands as possible.
Dear Prof Turley,
I believe it is President Trump who argues we must “Protect the minority of the opulent against the majority”. Clearly.
Afaict, Madison never said that. In Federalist No. 10, Madison did argue “that factions—groups united by common interests, passions, or property—would inevitably arise in any society where people have different degrees of wealth and property.”
In short, Madison concluded that “the causes of faction (i.e. wealth disparity) could not be removed, but the effects could be controlled.” Madison et al were converts of Adam Smith’s ‘free market’ described in the ‘Wealth of Nations’. And that a “well-constructed Union” would break and control the violence of faction, ensuring that even the “opulent minority” could have their ‘rights safeguarded against the tyranny of a majority’.
Obviously, Madison et al were not promoting an economic system to ‘protect an opulent Royal minority against the majority’ – or from the slings and arrows of outrageous Royal misfortune.
Madison et al were clearly promoting self-interested human innovation, fair rules/competition and the well-being of the ‘common good’. And that extreme degrees of wealth disparity not only should, but “could be controlled”. Extreme wealth disparity is a perversion of the free market .. . not a product of it.
Otoh, I do not believe Madison et al today, or then, would promote ‘wealth taxation’ as the best way to protect the ‘common good.’ Filling the coffers of an already compromised opulent ruling elite does nothing to promote the ‘common good’ or a free marketplace. Evidently, today political power is entirely contingent upon wealth. Ask Thomas Massie.
It’s the free market that must be protected. Overt fascism and centrally planned economies do not work.
Presently, I promote strict, rigid mandatory and/or voluntary ‘profit sharing’ to control Madison’s ‘violence of faction’ and ensure even the ‘opulent minority could have their rights safeguarded against the tyranny of pissed-off Americans’. .. whether Elon likes it or not.
*I’ve got change . .. from his hand to mine!
oh oh now d.g. is going A.I.
Hey. I’m not going back to read all of Madison’s Federalist papers and Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’ just to find out whether, or not, ‘the framers would have hated the wealth tax’ .. . presumably Gov Newsom’s billionaire tax.
AI is evil, but can be useful . .. perhaps Turley should look into it and join the 21st century.
*what part do you dispute?
It is easy bookkeeping to eliminate profits. Any distribution should be made on the gross income and that includes the apparent value of a company seen in the market capitalization.
No one is asking for central planning.