NYTimes | But every group finds itself facing criticism, and ends up on the losing
side of policy disputes, somewhere along the way; that’s democracy. The
question is what happens next. Normal people take it in stride; even if
they’re angry and bitter over political setbacks, they don’t cry
persecution, compare their critics to Nazis and insist that the world
revolves around their hurt feelings. But the rich are different from you
and me.
And yes, that’s partly because they have more money, and the power that
goes with it. They can and all too often do surround themselves with
courtiers who tell them what they want to hear and never, ever, tell
them they’re being foolish. They’re accustomed to being treated with
deference, not just by the people they hire but by politicians who want
their campaign contributions. And so they are shocked to discover that
money can’t buy everything, can’t insulate them from all adversity.
I
also suspect that today’s Masters of the Universe are insecure about
the nature of their success. We’re not talking captains of industry
here, men who make stuff. We are, instead, talking about
wheeler-dealers, men who push money around and get rich by skimming some
off the top as it sloshes by. They may boast that they are job
creators, the people who make the economy work, but are they really
adding value? Many of us doubt it — and so, I suspect, do some of the
wealthy themselves, a form of self-doubt that causes them to lash out
even more furiously at their critics.
Anyway,
we’ve been here before. It’s impossible to read screeds like those of
Mr. Perkins or Mr. Schwarzman without thinking of F.D.R.’s famous 1936
Madison Square Garden speech, in which he spoke of the hatred he faced from the forces of “organized money,” and declared, “I welcome their hatred.”
President
Obama has not, unfortunately, done nearly as much as F.D.R. to earn the
hatred of the undeserving rich. But he has done more than many
progressives give him credit for — and like F.D.R., both he and
progressives in general should welcome that hatred, because it’s a sign
that they’re doing something right.
