The reality was that African Americans with money, African Americans exercising their own independence, especially financially, was a real threat, especially in the former Confederate South, where the Civil War was fought over the future of slavery in the nation.
Part of the punchline of the book is that black people can't purchase an escape from racism. We can't buy ourselves out of anti-blackness in the US. Moreover, black people know this.
I think we now need alternative minimum taxes of 60 or 70% on anything over a billion dollars for an individual because these individuals are under the impression that they are not subject to the standards of Western society, decency or any or the law.
If you do not want everything to be owned by a tiny elite, you have to aggressively tax extremely high levels of wealth. Because otherwise, if you're Jeff Bezos, what is he worth? $300 billion, right? Even if he makes 5% a year, he's making $15 billion a year, right? And it's just going to grow, right? It's going to grow unbelievably quickly.
Do you want everything to be owned by the tiny elite or not? If you do not want everything to be owned by a tiny elite, you have to aggressively tax extremely high levels of wealth.
The argument in favor of allowing everyday investors to own this stuff is that this stuff has made people really rich over long periods of time and so if you only let rich people own it, they're only going to get richer and the wealth gap explodes.
