Too Much Power

"The rich have too much power," someone said yesterday. It is a commonly-held sentiment, but I wonder what it means? I don't know who the richest people in my town or my state are, but I doubt that they have much power over me. Town and state officials, not all elected, have much more power over me. They in turn do not necessarily have that much power to do what they want. Their power is derivative, a community consensus of what we all should be able to do and not do to each other. In that realm, the rich do have more power to do what they want to.

Yet even that is hardly unlimited, and there are ways that one can do that without having a lot of money. The power to be left alone, particularly beloved of libertarians, is sometimes accomplished in the opposite way. People limit their wealth to get off the grid, not be connected to the government or standard economy, or otherwise extricate themselves from others having power over them.

Taxation is a limitation on the power of everyone. The more your money goes into gas taxes or property taxes, the less power you have to do what you want. Further, how officials use that money to structure the society around you also has its effect. Moving to another location is an enormous power, allowing one to get away from difficult people, dangerous neighborhoods, and declining economies. Still, one has to live somewhere, and that somewhere will have its own rules and structure. Eastern Europeans move to the west. Western Europeans move to Canada, New Zealand, and the US.