Wealth in the modern world

Maasai herder with cattle

With the primary election season upon us, there has been a lot of attention focused on income and wealth. Particularly that of the 1%.

In a widely reported account, Oxfam released a study last week purporting that just 62 billionaires possessed as much wealth as half of the world’s population. Without delving into the politics of equality, taxation, and redistribution, let’s simply look at why that might be.

The first question one might ask is how is wealth measured? In our Western sense, wealth is measured in dollars: the equity in our homes and other possessions, the value of our 401Ks and other bank accounts. These assets are currency-denominated. But to a Maasai nomad, wealth is measured by the number of cattle he owns. The value of those bovines is not likely to show up in Oxfam’s report.

But that is to quibble. It is undeniably clear that Bill Gates holds more assets than all of the Maasai tribes put together, regardless of how those assets are measured.

Another minor confusion to clear up is the distinction between income and wealth. Income is the flow of net additional assets accruing to an individual, typically from labor (wages) or return on capital (investments). For the Maasai, income is measured in milk, not in steaks.

Oxfam does not confuse these, but politicians and the media have a free-for-all, mixing income and wealth in a confusing mélange of “who owns what” and “who earns what.” The answers can be greatly different, with wildly differing effects on public policy. It is wise to learn the difference. 

But let’s refocus on wealth, and who holds it, and why.

Between the Civil War years and the mid-twentieth century, we saw enormous growth in this country. This was due largely to technological advances. In these eighty years, we saw the coming of the transcontinental railroad, coast-to-coast telegraphy and telephony, massive steelworks, sprawling oilfields, and the capital accumulation (banks) to finance all of it.

The names are famous. Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroads and shipping), John D. Rockefeller (petroleum), Andrew Carnegie (steel making), Henry Ford (automobiles), and J.P. Morgan (banking). These, along with many others, built twentieth century America. And for their pains, for their risk taking, they became enormously wealthy. (Completely unknown are the stories of thousands of other entrepreneurs who tried and failed. Only the successful made it into our consciousness).

Did these vaunted capitalists deserve their wealth? One can only compare the lives of a woman in 1870 to one in 1940. The latter woman could call a relative on a far coast, just to chat. She could travel there in mere days, not months. She was able to listen to entertaining radio programs and wash her clothes in a new-fangled wringer/washer. She could drive to the grocery store and buy fresh bananas recently imported from Nicaragua. And place her homogenized milk in an electric refrigerator, keeping it fresh for days. These were the most wrenching changes in the history of mankind, in only one lifetime.

Many millions experienced these benefits. Was it immoral for the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, Carnegies and Fords, to have accumulated great wealth as a result? What if the opposite were attained – no wealth, no such advances?

In the current debate, Oxfam lists sixty two billionaires who hold half of the world’s wealth. Let’s ask, what have they done to deserve it? With limited space, here are a few:

A couple of Waltons – $161 billion – Walmart

Bill Gates – $79.2 billion – Microsoft (Windows et al)

Warren Buffett - $72.7 billion – Berkshire Hathaway, Geico (the little lizard)

Larry Page and Sergey Brin –  $58.9 billion – Google

Jeff Bezos – $34.8 billion – Amazon

Mark Zuckerberg, $33.4 billion – Facebook

Let’s imagine stripping these people of their wealth and erasing their companies. No more Walmart “everyday low prices.” No more Microsoft Windows (OK, that’s a mixed blessing). Goodbye little lizard and the millions of home and auto insurance policies he represents. No more Google – look it up yourself at the library. So long Amazon, can’t order those terrific shoes for delivery on Friday. And the cruelest cut of all – no more silly cat videos on Facebook to share with your many “friends.”

In the end, the populists have possibly won the debate. While the capitalists of the Golden Era instituted the greatest advances in human history, thoroughly earning their wealth, the most recent ones have simply provided us with convenience and entertainment.

In the end, we need to determine how much that is worth.

The Tale of a Gun

Edward Archer and his attack on Officer Jesse Hartnett

The gun was a semiautomatic nine millimeter pistol, with at least a 10-round magazine, most likely a Glock 17. It had been issued to an unnamed Philadelphia police officer.

Then, in  October, 2013, the gun was stolen from the police officer’s home.

There followed a shadowy interlude of just over two years during which the gun changed hands who knows how many times, participating in who knows how much mischief. Eventually, it ended up in the possession of one Edward Archer, 30, a self-professed Islamic radical.

Archer had already shown himself to be susceptible to the siren call of a gun. In 2012, he was arrested following a domestic dispute in which Archer “pulled a small black and silver semiautomatic handgun from his waist and pointed it towards the complainant's stomach while grabbing the complainant's shirt." Arrested and charged with assault and carrying a gun without a license, the courts sentenced him to nine to 23 months, but immediately paroled him, releasing him to the streets.

In the current event, on January 7^th, Archer, dressed in a traditional white Muslim robe, attempted to assassinate Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett. Charging Harnett’s cruiser at point blank range, Archer fired his stolen Glock from 11 to 13 times (as various sources report). Hartnett took three shots to his left arm, was critically wounded, but heroically exited his car and gave chase, shooting and wounding Archer in the buttocks before radioing for assistance. Archer's attack was captured on video by a security camera and has been widely viewed.

Backup units sped to the scene and Archer was quickly apprehended, his smoking gun still in hand. But the question of motivation remained.

According to CNN, the suspect told investigators: "I follow Allah. I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State and that's why I did what I did."

Philadelphia police commissioner, Richard Ross, expounded. "According to him, he believed that the police defend laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Quran."

Archer had traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2011 and Egypt in 2012. His mother, Valerie Holliday, stated that her son was a devout Muslim. Asim Abdur Rashid, the imam of Masjid Mujahideen mosque, said that Archer “was a frequent member of the masjid.”

The draw of Islamic radicalism is one theory. But Jim Kenney, the mayor of Philadelphia, assured us that this was all a ruse. “In no way shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam has anything to do with what you’ve seen on the screen,” said Mayor Kenney.

“That is abhorrent. It’s just terrible and it does not represent this religion [Islam] in any way shape or form or any of its teachings,” he added. “This is a criminal with a stolen gun who tried to kill one of our officers. It has nothing to do with being a Muslim or following the Islamic faith.”

Doubling down, Kenney blamed the stolen police weapon. "There are too many guns on our streets, and I think our national government needs to do something about that."

Then the White House weighed in. Josh Earnest, the President’s press secretary, said ”Certainly one thing we can do is to keep guns out of the hands of people like him. Whether it’s somebody who planned to carry out a terrorist act or somebody who has significant mental problems shouldn’t be so easily able to get their hands on a gun.”

(Earnest, lobbying for greater background checks, apparently forgot that the weapon had originally been stolen from a police officer).

There is also the theory that Archer was mentally unstable. According the Archer’s mother, he had been hearing voices in his head. While Archer’s brother, Shane, denied that Edward was “mental,” the possibility certainly remains.

From this confusing diaspora of events and statements, we are left with three theories to explain Archer’s actions:

1. That Archer was radicalized and performed the shooting in the name of Islam
2. That Archer was mentally unstable and committed the act out of insanity.
3. That the gun somehow animated Archer’s action and was the root cause of “gun violence.”

It seems that the White House and media are going with door number three. By focusing on “gun violence,” they are positing that removing guns will eliminate violence. And that “expanded background checks” will reduce the carnage.

While anything is possible, it seems that violent people will always find a way. The Murrah building, destroyed by explosives, 168 killed. A knife attack in a Chinese train station, 29 dead. For evil people, it seems that their goal is more important than their means. By focusing on “gun violence” alone, we are shortsightedly ignoring the broader evil in the human heart.

Violence is violence. Let’s concentrate on that, and the means to control it.