Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Capitalism matches up with liberty pretty closely, and it creates more wealth than any other economic system, but Capitalism has the major flaw that it concentrates wealth. Concentrated wealth has always been a specter; James Madison, the author of the U.S. Constitution, said, “the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few.” Madison's prescience has become reality: the top 1% now own 40% percent of the country's wealth; more wealth than the bottom 90%; and in less than a decade, their portion of wealth increased by 3% while the bottom 90% fell, increasingly so.

Liberty is an abstract concept, wealth is not. In reality, liberty only directly benefits a segment of the population, but it still works as long as that number is large enough, perhaps 25% of everybody, because people, by-in-large, even today, are live-and-let-live, especially if they're doing okay too. Lack of wealth is not a deal-breaker but the human psyche, being what it is, won't suffer the perceived indignity of wild wealth disparity after some point. In that scenario, unfortunately liberty loses its luster, and in a democracy, socialism seems more attractive. Actually, for most of the population, that's probably true, which is why wealth concentration drives people to socialism; The 1% won't be affected by the change, but the 24% lose out.