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Paul Allen claims in his book that Bill Gates tried on more than one occasion to reduce Allen’s relative ownership interest in Microsoft. Of course, the veracity of Allen’s explanation can be questioned even if the factual changes in percentage terms are a matter of public record. In focusing on whether Allen’s explanation is credible, The Wall Street Journal overlooks more fundamental category mistake in reckoning ownership as a species of compensation. Such an error may reflect a hypertrophy involving the value of money in American society—an exaggeration to which the journal may be susceptible as the foremost mouthpiece of American business.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Paul Allen has some critical things to say about his co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates. In general, Allen asserts that Gates tried more than once to reduce Allen’s relative financial ownership in the company. Whereas the journal focuses on the veracity of Allen’s claims—ultimately questioning the man’s credibility—I find in the story a case study on the difference between ownership and compensation for labor and on corporate leadership. I contend that the difference may often be minimized in business as well as by society, while particular CEOs are unduly projected onto the societal stage essentially as societal leaders.

Allen also claims in his book that in the mid-1970s, when he and Bill Gates were two college dropouts were based in New Mexico, Gates asked for 60% of their partnership because of his greater contributions to the creation of software for running the BASIC programming language on an early PC, the MITS Altair 8800. Allen says he had assumed that their partnership was evenly split, but he agreed Gates' request anyway. Several years later when Gates and Allen established Microsoft as a formal partnership, Gates asked to change their respective shares in the business to a 64-36 split, a demand to which Allen again agreed. Furthermore, in the early 1980s, Gates rebuffed Allen after the latter asked for an increase in his own Microsoft shares after his work on a successful Microsoft product called SoftCard, Allen writes that he was deeply disappointed in Gates’ response; he had known Gates since they were students at a prestigious private school in Seattle. "In that moment, something died for me," Allen writes. "I'd thought that our partnership was based on fairness, but now I saw that Bill's self-interest overrode all other considerations. My partner was out to grab as much of the pie as possible and hold on to it, and that was something I could not accept." Allen recounts that he sucked it up and thought, "OK…but one day I'm out of here." 
                                       
                                    Bill Gates and Paul Allen, co-founders of Microsoft

                                       By Doug Wilson/Corbis, printed in The Wall Street Journal 

Furthermore, Allen asserts that in 1982 he eavesdropped on a discussion in the Microsoft offices in Bellevue, Wash., between Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, who went on to become the company's CEO. Allen claims that he heard the two men talking about his recent lack of productivity and how they might dilute his equity in the company by issuing options to themselves and other shareholders. Allen said he burst into the room and confronted the two men, both of whom later apologized to him and backed down from their plan. "I had helped start the company and was still an active member of management, though limited by my illness, and now my partner and my colleague were scheming to rip me off. . . . It was mercenary opportunism, plain and simple." If so, then the vaunted veneer of societal leadership that Bill Gates has attained by virtue of his achievements in software, sheer wealth, and philanthropy may be a projection of something more than the man, and thus a reflection of societal values.

Of course, there are two sides to squabbles, and this case is no exception. Gates's attempts to lower Mr. Allen's stake in the company reflected concerns that Allen wasn't working hard enough and wasn't commitment to the company, say people familiar with the relationship according to the journal. That was one reason, these people say, why Gates put a provision in their first partnership agreement that would allow him to buy out Allen if he thought there were "irreconcilable differences" between the two men. Allen refers to the provision but does not include a reason for it, which is telling. Furthermore, third parties with knowledge of meeting to which Allen refers claim that Allen puts himself in meetings that he did not in fact attend. If true, Allen’s claims regarding Gates could also be doubted, though there is factual support for the changes in ownership percentages even if not for the reasons.

If Gates was putting more effort into the business, an argument based on that could be made that he should receive a higher percentage of the ownership so he would receive more dividends. However, it could also be argued that ownership, unlike compensation, is based on having founded a business (or having purchased the rights to such a basis by buying stock-ownership). Gates may have conflated compensation with ownership in demanding a greater percentage of stock, essentially regarding the latter as compensation in treating dividends as a form of salary. Such a conflation may distort property ownership in a way that minimizes the fundamental difference between an owner and an employee. Of course, an owner can work as an employee of his own business, but the two roles are distinct. Gates’ mistaken notion of ownership may have been formed out of a society that over-values executive compensation, and more generally money. Consider, for example, the much higher compensation packages that American managers receive relative to their European colleagues. Relatedly, the ratio of executive to “lower level” employee compensation in the U.S. is much higher than in the E.U.  Such differences point to differences in societal values, and such values can, if exaggerated, lead to category mistakes. So Allen’s complaint against his boyhood friend and business partner may actually be a critique of a much larger problem in American society.

Click to add a Comment or Question (and View Posted Comments) on Bill Gates and Paul Allen at Microsoft and the wider implications for business and society. 

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), was the Tea Party candidate who challenged the Republican establishment to win the party’s Senate nomination in Kentucky on May 18, 2010. A day later, he publically criticized a plank of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Specifically, he said in an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC television that he supported the sections of the Civil Rights Act that applied to public accommodations but had concerns when it came to its applicability to private business. He had raised similar concerns earlier in the day about the Americans with Disabilities Act in an interview on National Public Radio. Asked by Maddow if a private business had the right to refuse to serve black people, Mr. Paul replied, “Yes.”

In citing the rights inherent in private property, Mr. Paul, an eye surgeon, was refusing to recognize the “publicness” in a business being open to the public, as distinct from someone’s house, which is not open to the public. In other words, Mr. Paul was ignoring the qualification to private property that comes into play as soon as said property is opened to the public.  Such property is quasi-public precisely because it is open to the public.  Hence, society, through its government, has a right to dictate the obligations going with that element of publicness.  Mr. Paul would have been on firmer ground had he limited his statement to private clubs, such as country clubs, which do not receive public money and are not open to the public.  However, even here, if people associate in a way that hurts others by intentionally excluding them, there might be an argument in favor of subjecting them to the Act, though such an argument seems weaker than those for freedom of association and on private property not open to the public.

Rand Paul also said on ABC TV that President Barack Obama’s criticism of BP in the wake of the Gulf oil debacle sounds “really un-American.”  Paul said that the president’s response is part of the “blame game” that’s played in the United States. The game, he argued, leads to the thinking that tragic incidents are “always someone’s fault” when sometimes accidents just happen. Sen. Paul was ignoring that BP overrode Transocean in directing its employees not to use “mud” to maintain pressure in the well as cement “corks” were being inserted.  Also, managers at BP claimed to have the technology to stop any leak or spill when no such technology existed. In short, the managers at BP put the Gulf at risk in order to cut corners so as to earn more profit (as if $2 billion a month was not sufficient).  Rather than go after the mentality of shirking amid a “more, more, more” mentality wherein nothing is ever enough, Paul went after the representative of the victim–society as a whole.  That is to say, he added insult to injury by going after the victim rather than the culprit.  In so doing, he ignored key elements of the culpability.

Listening to the candidate the Maddow show on MSNBC, I was more concerned by the way he chose to evade questions than by his failure to take “being open to the public” into account in his view on civil rights law. At one point, Rachel Maddow asked him, “yes or no,”  on whether he would exclude private businesses from the Civil Rights law.  He replied that he was against the violence that took place in the 1960s in association with Walgreen’s lunch-counters. Beyond not answering the question, Mr. Paul seemed to be continuing with what he wanted to say–ignoring the question entirely as a mere interruption to be dismissed. I noticed a few times that after Maddow did indeed interrupt him, he simply picked up with what he had been saying.  Could his ignoring the questions be related to his ignoring the “open to the public” qualification and the risky shirking of BP?  In other words, might it be that Mr. Paul simply does not see what is inconvenient to his world view?  If so, I contend that this character trait is far more alarming than even his evasions and his over-simplified view on private property and the oil spill.  If you have ever tried repeatedly to tell someone something only to have your statement ignored as the other person continues on with what he or she was saying, you know what I mean. Sadly, I suspect that Rand Paul didn't notice it. This character flaw is by no means limited to him. Nor is this an invitation for partisan aspersions on the Republican Party.

Rather, I suspect that not answering questions--even asking one's own instead of given any answer to a question outstanding--is a growing attitude in modern America. I have witnessed it myself in emailing people I don't know on matters involving an actual or potential commercial transation. Does the computer come with Office 2007? Reply: When you would like to come by to look at it?  But what about Office 2007?  Or take apartment hunting:  Are utilities included in the rent? Reply: Call me to make an appointment to see the unit. Nietzsche would have a field day with such a mentality that vaunts itself as superior by "virtue" of its own assumed dominance. The basis of Rand Paul's non-answer, in other words, could have been an attempt to dominate beyond his place on Maddow's show. In other words, his non-answers could have been refusals rooted in a will to power that was biting off more than it could chew on someone else's show.

In terms of having a will to power based on strength, many of the stations or offices in modern society that we view as being entitled to dominate are in fact weak.  Nietzsche points to the modern moralist's thou shalt not as an attempt by the weak to dominate beyond their innate weak constitution. He also points to the attempts of the modern manager to dominate in such terms (and the priest as well). In watching various personalities giving non-answers while being interviewed on television, I find myself wondering if they know they are doing it. If they do, they are indeed rascals; if they do not, their stygian pathology is much deeper than I am equipped to investigate. Perhaps the modern illness is malignant narcissism to such an extent in a personality that the delimited perspective eclipses even awareness of what oneself is doing.

Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/us/politics/21paul.html?ref=politics   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37273085/ns/politics-decision_2010/

In 1928, the Senate stopped the bill that would have given WWI vets their bonus then rather than in 1946.  Mass protests for weeks by thousands of vets on the U.S. Capitol may have swayed the U.S. House, but the Senate was undaunted: passage of the bill would be economically disasterous .   Such a scenerio is exactly what the delegates in the U.S. constitutional convention in 1787 would have predicted.  They designed the House to reflect the passions of the people, and the Senate as a check on such passion where it is intemperate.   Looking back at Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts, the delegates feared excess democracy.  No supporter of the Senate, Madison nonetheless points out that “a numerous body of Representatives were liable to err also, from fickleness and passion. A necessary fence against this danger would be to select a portion of enlightened citizens, whose limited number, and firmness might seasonably interpose against impetuous councils” (Madison’s Notes, p. 194).

However, the delegates also designed the U.S. Senate “to represent the wealth of the Country” (Pinkney, in Madison’s Notes, p. 198).  Col. Mason claimed that “one important object in constituting the Senate was to secure the rights of property” (Madison’s Notes, p. 200).  Does being wealthy make one temporate or enlightened?   Madison observes that “wisdom & virtue” are among the objects of the proposed Senate (Madison’s Notes, p. 195).  Does being wealthy mean that one is apt to stand up for virtue?  Does wisdom come from having inherited or earned wealth?

As if these two purposes etched in the design of the U.S. Senate are not sufficiently disjoined, the delegates also intended that the Senate represent the State governments so as to proffer them a means of defending their turf against encroachment by the U.S. Government.  Senators were selected by State governments before the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913.  It was debated in the convention whether popular election would give the senators a sufficient incentive to protect their respective State governments.  The delegates concluded that it would be insufficient, and history has proved them right–as the governments of the States have steadily lost power to the expansive U.S. Government.

So, the U.S. Senate was designed as a check on the excess democracy possible in the U.S. House, to protect the interests of property, and to represent the State governments and protect the balance of power so crucial to the viability of federalism.   It is not clear to me that these three functions are mutually-supporting or even compatible.  I don’t see evidence in Madison’s Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of any consideration of the assumed compatibility.

Just as any human institution is apt to subtly morph if it endures for a sufficient time, the U.S. Senate has changed through the centuries.  As a result of the 17th Amendment wherein U.S. Senators are now popularly elected (by State), the U.S. Senate is more democratic–hence more like the House.  The six year senatorial term is a buffer, to be sure. However, re-election is never too far off to be absent from a given Senator’s political and legislative calculation.   Hence we are unwittingly leaving ourselves vulnerable to our own excesses.  Are we assuming that our passionate, spur-of-the-moment, collective impulse cannot be reckless and ultimately not in our own best interest?

I have already pointed to the implications for the State governments, and we have seen their eclipse through the last century.   What about the protection of property?  How does this mix with the more-democratic “structural tendency” in the Senate?   Are Senators more oriented to the upper-class voters while soothing the rest as if we too are being represented?  In other words, is there a sort of duplicity built-in to this combination?

In my opinion, the U.S. Senate can represent the State governments while simultaneously serving as a check on the intemporate excesses possible in the U.S. House.  Property is sufficiently represented in the U.S. Government as a whole, given the small number of elected and appointed officials relative to the entire population.   I would look to the commensurate European Council in the E.U.   The Council not only represents the State governments, the chief executives of the States (or their ministers when specialized topics are decided) sit on the Council.   It is a viable check on the European Parliament, which is commensurate with the U.S. House (i.e., elected representatives by the people of the EU).   We could do better by emulating the European Council.

Accordingly, I recommend that the governors sit in the Senate (which would meet periodically…with the governors’ respective staffs doing the leg work), with the relevant members of the States’ cabinets meeting on specialized topics.   This might seem confusing, but it works in Europe.  Essentially, officials in the respective State governments would meet in a common council.  50, not 100 members.  The latter number is too numerous for a council.   Because governors are elected, democracy would not be shirked even as the Senate would be a viable check on the excesses in the House (because the governors acting in a council are “two degrees” from the voters while the U.S. Reps are only one).   To be sure, the Senate would not be meeting every day, but meeting periodically to decide the major points.

The Senate representing the State governments would distinguish the Senate from being a replica of the House.  Do we really need two Houses?   Strictly speaking, proportional representation applies where citizens are being represented.  In contrast, in an intergovernmental council each government is a member–a person, as it were–regardless of how much each weights (e.g., different populations, territorial size, or wealth).  The European Council deviates from the “intergovernmental council” model because the number of votes assigned to the governments is influenced by its population.  I don’t see why the Senate would no longer be an intergovernmental council just because the votes are proportional; the key would be that governments would be voting, so the one vote per government could be relaxed.  Because proportional represention is the rule in the U.S. House, the big States can protect themselves.  So I don’t view the one vote per government in the Senate as problematic in terms of the Congress as a whole.  In general terms, the more we can distinguish the two bodies of the Congress, the more we enrich our system of government by taking advantage of the unique contributions from different forms of polity.   If there is a downside to proportional representation,  a Senate not partaking of that method would automatically be a check (and vice versa, of course).

I think it is because income/wealth/profits is valued so much in the US that there is such selfishness recoiling from Obama’s desire for universal health coverage. Also, the republican argument that the Bush tax cuts on incomes above $200,000 should be continued attests to the value. The fact that the argument is being made at all is unbelievable.  Data shows that the rich save the extra money saved from taxes, but that isn’t stopping the Republicans and some House democrats from arguing that the rich would spend the money to hire (i.e., lowering unemployment).  Incroyable, je crois.  The income taxed of small business people is on the income they take out…which would otherwise be saved or spent on themselves…not on their business.  The argument doesn’t make sense and yet it is made as if it does!  Incredibly, some democrats are beginning to buy it.  It is incredible that tax cuts are being talked about at all, given the $13 tillion US govt debt. I understand that raising tax has a contraction effect on the GNP, but how much?  The rich avoiding some additional taxes: would that really mean such a contraction?  Even if it does, the increase to the debt would tend to increase interest rates as well as the amount that the US Government will have to pay on interest. Moreover, an unsustainable public debt makes the US itself ultimately unsustainable. It seems small to worry about a slight contraction (if any) from the restoration of tax rates on those people who have the means to pay higher taxes. I suspect that the underlying reason for the argument is the hypertropic value put on wealth in the US.

In the fall of 2010, I heard the following comment on Fox News: “The government should spend more on the war in Afghanistan in order to fight terrorism. The problem is that the government has gotten into entitlements”  (e.g. food stamps, public housing, social security, medicare, medicaid).  This is distinct from saying that the federal government should concentrate on foreign policy and military, with entitlements being funded and decided by the states. Such a statement would be for federalism rather than about priorities.  Too often, it is difficult to discern whether republican office-holders are more interested in greater federalism or a different sense of government in general. The republicans are not saying they want a smaller government, for they want more military spending.  I believe the republican vision is for a different sort of government, rather than for a return to federalism (i.e., more of a balance of power/domains between the state governments and the U.S. Government). Republicans believe that government (regardless of the level) exists to fund foreign affairs and war…not to fund poor people.  That is, military contractors rather than poor people. I think this political ideology is fairly unique in the world today.  Certainly most Europeans in the E.U. view redistributive rights for the basics needed for living as a legitimate part of government.  In contrast, many in the U.S. believe that the market mechanism (i.e., resources as commodities produced and distributed by private enterprise) trumps basic needs (as the market does not guarantee that the needs are met, whereas a redistributive sustenance right does). Perhaps the basic question is whether any citizen of the United States should be allowed to go without necessities (basic food, shelter and health-care).  In other words, it can and indeed should be asked whether the right to survival (i.e., life) is part of the social contract of the American political society.  I suggest that the media and our representatives ought to participate in a sustained debate on this question directly, rather than deviating to particular hot-button issues.

According to James Madison in Federalist #51, “the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger” in the state of nature. Nor is the weaker secured against starvation and sickness.  Life, as Thomas Hobbes writes, is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” in the state of nature.  The social contract undergirding a political society is meant to alleviate the fear of the want of necessities (and self-defense) while working for the happiness of the members.  In other words, there is a right to shelter, food and medical care in a social contract that takes its members out of the state of nature; otherwise, the society is marginal as an answer to the insecurity that exists in the state of nature.

Therefore, I contend that those Americans who want to extend the Bush tax cuts for those making over $200,000 and cut unemployment compensation are essentially enabling their greed to compromise the social contract.  If that contract is weakened and some members of society placed back in the state of nature, then it is important for the wealthy to realize that their own right of property is based on that social contract.  In other words, cutting off food and shelter for others may free them up to take your property, for they are no longer protected by the social contract against the state of nature.  If sustenance as a right is abridged, then so too is the right of property, because neither sustenance nor property is guaranteed in the state of nature.

James Madison wrote in Federalist #10, “a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union, than a particular member of it.”

That is to say, it is in the interest of the wealthy that power be taken from your State capital and deposited in the US Government. Is it any wonder, therefore, that consolidation has eclipsed federalism in the U.S?  Given the diversity that naturally exists in an “extended republic” such as the U.S. (i.e., an empire-scale polity), this one-size-fits-all interest of the rich is ultimately self-defeating with respect to the continued viability of the United States. The question is perhaps whether the financial elite will be oriented to the long or short term, and, relatedly, to public or particular interests.

In the constitutional convention of the United States in 1787, the property-interests were well-represented. Even so, a fear of a plutocracy was voiced by those property-protectors as well. While one might conclude at first glance that the wealthy delegates were duplicitous, their position is not self-contradictory, even if the bias toward wealth is discomforting for those of us who value representative democracy.

Governeur Morris, on July 5, asserted that property is “the main object of Society.” (1) Rutlidge, on July 5, concurred, maintaining, “Property was certainly the principal object of Society.” (2) Hamilton, on June 26, argued that the “inequality of property constituted the great & fundamental distinction in Society.” (3) King, on July 6 averred that “property was the primary object of Society.” (4) In Morris’ view, property is thus “the main object of [Government].” (5) Hamilton articulated this view in the Federalist by writing that the adoption of the Constitution will afford additional security “to the preservation of [republican] government, to liberty and to property.” (6) “I am convinced,” he writes, “that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity and your happiness.” (7) So his statement that “the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty” can be read as a plea for a General Government primarily to protect property interests. (8) Butler, on July 11, claimed likewise that government is “instituted principally for the protection of property.” (9) At the very least, these remarks evince a reductionism wherein society and government were viewed in terms of wealth. Shouldering a minority view on this point, Wilson, on July 13 in the convention, “could not agree that property was the sole or the primary object of [Government] & society. The cultivation & improvement of the human mind was the most noble object.” (10) This object, he suggested, is a personal right. (11) As much as this object is laudatory, it is not the object of government, which I contend is to provide and ensure order, which goes beyond the protection of property. If there is a higher purpose, government can express and operationalize societal ideals, which can thus orient whatever order government provides.

The primary result of the delegates’ property-centric view was the formation of a General Government of the U. States to counter the risk that State legislatures would act democractically at odds with the interests of the wealthy. Just a year before the convention, the Massachusetts legislature had attempted to act in the interest of debtors (i.e., unpaid soldiers who were still expected to pay on their farm debts; the representatives sought to stop this injustice at the expense of the creditors). Shays’ Rebellion was the unhappy result. Govereur Morris, on July 2, alluded to this affront on property interests in stating, “Every man of observation had seen in the democratic branches of the State Legislatures, precipitation—in Congress changeableness, in every department excesses [against] personal liberty [,] private property & personal safety.” (12) However, what if private property is acquired unjustly at the expense of another’s liberty? In other words, liberty may run counter to the interests of the rich.

Madison, on June 26 in the convention, remarked that “we had not among us those hereditary distinctions, … nor those extremes of wealth or poverty which characterize [the modern States in Europe]… . An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labour under all the hardships of life, & secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings… . a leveling spirit… the future danger.” (13) Leveling would actually be in line with liberty if wealth has been acquired unjustly, as for example, under duress. Moreover, too great an inequality of wealth can threaten the viability of a republic. For example, in 1985, the top five percent in the U.S. held $8 trillion in wealth. By 2007, they had $40 trillion. Besides being in part from the dot.com and housing bubbles wherein asset values were overvalued, the concentration of wealth cannot but undermine representative democracy wherein each person has one vote. Interestingly, even as they sought to protect their wealth from being leveled via representative democracy, the delegates also feared that the U. States would end up as a plutocracy (i.e., ruled by the wealthy who would be our aristocracy). Governeur Morris, on July 2, expressed the following. “Let the rich mix with the poor and in a Commercial Country, they will establish an oligarchy. Take away commerce, and the democracy will triumph. Thus it has been all the world over. So it will be among us.” (14) Madison reports that Morris feared “the influence of the rich.” (15) That the U.S. was even then an extended republic on the scale of an empire was thought, at least by Morris, to strength the ability of the rich to rule.  “The schemes of the Rich,” he maintained, “will be favored by the extent of the Country. The people in such distant parts can not communicate & act in concert. They will be the dupes of those who have more knowledge & intercourse.” (16) Govereur Morris, on July 2, maintained that “The Rich will take advantage of their passions & make these the instruments for oppressing them. The Result of the Contest will be a violent aristocracy, or a more violent despotism.” (17)

Madison reports that Morris’ “creed was that there never was, nor ever will be a civilized Society without an aristocracy. His endeavor was to keep it as much as possible from doing mischief.” (18) To contain such mischief (and to protect property-rights), the delegates wanted the proposed U.S. Senate to represent the interests of the wealthy (as well as wisdom and the state governments—a combination they problematically assumed would play well together in the Senate). Govereur Morris, on July 2, claimed that “The Rich will strive to establish their dominion & enslave the rest. They always did. They always will. The proper security [against] them is to form them into a separate interest.” (19) Accordingly, Davy, on July 6, urged that “wealth or property ought to be represented in the [second] branch.” (20)

The Senate was to be a conservative institution, wherein the vested property interests must sign off on any reform.  This could partially explain why passing health-insurance reform in 2010 was so arduous (and why extant health-insurance companies were able to kill off a competing public option). It could also explain why the wealthy could insist that their tax cuts be extended even as the U.S. Government was facing another deficit over $1 trillion also in 2010.

In short, the delegates to the constitutional convention were concerned that a “leveling danger” not be allowed to redistribute wealth even as they feared the advent of a plutocracy as essentially aristocratic governance. Government should protect wealth but not be run by it. In modern terms, this position might seem familiar as: CEO’s like Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs should not run the government, but the latter should not be used by those without to take from the wealthy. Yet as the CEOs’ agents in government essentially operate in the interest of the corporations and the wealthy, does not the government’s orientation to property already evince a plutocracy by a moneyed aristocracy? If so, Jefferson and Adams, who were for a natural aristocracy of talent and virtue rather than money (the latter being an “artificial aristocracy,” which the two founders believed was taking hold in the U. States even in the early 1800s), would doubtless demur. It is telling for us that government protecting wealth is virtually taken for granted among the American people even as the fear of an impending plutocracy and moneyed aristocracy is nearly absent. Any balance from the delegates’ two fears has dissolved in favor of property. The bias is so engrained in American society and government that it has become invisible.

1. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 244
2. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 245
3. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 196
4. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 247
5. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 244
6. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #1, in Jacob E. Cooke, The Federalist, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961, p. 7
7. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #1, in Jacob E. Cooke, The Federalist, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961, p. 6
8. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #1, in Jacob E. Cooke, The Federalist, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961, p. 5
9. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 268
10. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 287
11. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 287
12. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 233
13. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 194
14. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 233-34
15. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 235
16. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 235
17. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 235
18. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 251
19. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 233
20. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 248

I've been following politics less now that Obama has caved on his campaign pledge (or promise) not to extend the bush tax cuts for the rich.  The added growth expected in 2011 from ALL of the cuts is just a half of a percent of GNP growth.  I have read that the rich save their tax cuts rather than use them in ways that stimuate the economy.  As for savings, banks have enough capital to lend (this isn't why they are still skittish in 2010).  That the vacuous argument that tax cuts for the rich will somehow create lots of jobs and save the economy from another recession has had <em>any</em> weight or credance really discourages me about American political discourse.  That Obama didn't "just say no" is also discouraging. On December 14, 2010, Pat O'Reilly said on his Foxs News show that the "far left" is in retreat because Ameriicans have rejected it.  He said even Obama has rejected the left. I think the left has vanquished itself.  Perhaps it could be said that the left is willingly impotent. Where is Al Gore?  Ralph Nadar?  Micheal Moore?  silence.  Only the sound of Obama caving. He should have refused to sign a tax cut continuation for the rich and said the Repubs could refuse to extend the cut for lower and middle income people--it would be the Repubs provoking the resumption of higher taxes for everyone rather than just on those who can afford them.  We need a Teddy Roosevelt or an Andrew Jackson. Teddy stood up to Standard Oil, and Jackson stood up to the Second Bank of the United States. By contrast, Obama has operated largely in line with Wall Street (e.g., the bailout for the banks rather than foreclosed homeowners) and the health insurance industry (e.g. not even a public option, which was odious to the industry).  Barak Obama does not want to displease the powers that be; I suspect reelection has a lot to do with this state of affairs.  This raises the question: is there a counter in American politics to the selfishness of property?

Despite the weak U.S. economy, 2010 could be the second most profitable for New York City's securities industry, and the average bonus may top last year's because so many bankers and brokers have been laid off. Wall Street earned $21.4 billion during the first three quarters of 2010. The prior year's record of $61.4 billion was fueled by the bailout by the U.S. Government. Wall Street paid out $20.3 billion in bonuses on the $61.4 billion in profits. According to New York City Comptroller John Liu, "The astounding recovery of financial firm profitability in 2009 has been followed by a mixed year in 2010, yet total compensation in the industry is expected to be up modestly once year-end bonuses are paid," Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs’ Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein and his top deputies will collect about $111.3 million in stock in January, 2011, in a delayed payoff from 2009 and their record-setting 2007 bonuses, according to a Bloomberg News report. Within a year after the bonuses were approved, Goldman Sachs took $10 billion from the U.S. Treasury, converted to a bank and was borrowing as much as $35.4 billion a day from Federal Reserve emergency programs, Bloomberg reported, adding that in 2010 the firm paid $550 million to settle U.S. regulators’ fraud charges related to a mortgage-security the company sold in 2007.

Analysis:
Three points come to mind from this report from MSNBC.  First, the disjunction between Wall Street and Main Street means that any recovery underway in 2010 was not uniform through the U.S. economy. In other words, the "jobless" recovery did not hurt bonuses in the financial sector.  Secondly, the dictum that the fraudulant must inevitably pay is effectively countered by the example of Goldman Sachs.  Blankfein testified before Sen. Levin's Investigations committee that Goldman Sachs had merely been a market-maker even as the bank had traded on its own books to short against the mortgage derivatives even as it was selling them to its clients. In other words, the bank was profiting both ways even as it was contributing to the financial crisis.  After an infusion of government cash, the bank has made off quite well. Lest I be accused of envy, it is the unfairness involved that has inspired this post. Lastly, the positive impact of the bank bailout on the industry (and its bonuses) can be distinguished from the lack of help from the U.S. Government to the millions of homeowners who have lost their homes.  I say "homes" rather than houses to extentuate the point that foreclosure extolls rather severe costs in addition to the financial kind. I distinguish the luxuriating bankers from the plight of the foreclosed in order to point to Barak Obama's priority. His chief economic advisor until the end of 2010, Larry Summers (whose high school economics teacher is one of my mother's cousins), had been involved in obstructing efforts to regulate derivatives in 1998 (Summers was one of Rubin's deputies in Treasury under Clinton at the time).  Furthermore, Tim Geitner, Obama's Treasury Secretary, had been appointed as President of the New York Federal Reserve by a board with the urging of Citibank).  In other words, Obama's leanings toward Wall Street can be understood both from the directionality of the bailout and whom he has appointed. We should not really be surprised that the big banks and their employees whom the banks have not let go came back to vigor so quickly while the general recovery has been jobless.  Those who have, get more, while those who don't have, remain stuck.  The impact on the viability of our republics can not be good. Increasing inequality exascerbated by government policy cannot but render us even more a plutocracy (i.e., rule by the wealthy). To reply that any effort to tamper with this increasing inequality threatens property rights and economic liberty ignores the disparate impact of government policy (e.g., the bank bailout) on the wealthy. Moreover, when economic inequality threatens the viability of representative democracy, that democracy has a right to correct that which threatens it. One might call the policy-driven inequality a systemic risk that cannot be allowed to continue to exist without threatening the viability of the system. To put it plainly, a person does not have the right to riches if they risk the entire system coming down or even being compromised.  An absolute right to property, like an absolutist conception of sovereignty, is simply irresponsible and ultimately selfish. The 2010 bonuses coming out of Wall Street so soon after the crisis of 2008 and the subsequent bailout suggest that the extent of economic inequality in the U.S. is neither an accident nor natural.

FYI: If any of this post is significant enough to be logged in memory and reflected on later, it might be that the bank bonuses occurred during a jobless "recovery." This juxtaposition is in itself indicative of something troubling going on.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40681578/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/%22%3Ehttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40681578/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/%3C/a%3E%3C/p