Everyone , irrespective of income, is free to share their views on what actions may be beneficial to the country.
Yes, but their income level and what they say can be correlated in some instances. This is one of them.
In the early twentieth century, the progressive movement pushed legislation through to ‘protect consumers’. It was framed in a way to push the narrative of big business vs the little guy.
In reality many big businessmen helped push the legislation. As leftist historian with no love for markets Gabriel Kolko showed, in
The Triumph of Conservatism, competition from new small businesses were harming the profits of the trusts established at the end of the 19th century. So, to limit competition and ensure monopoly profits, they promoted progressive legislation to tame competition and punish those entities who wouldn’t play by their corporate rules. Upton Sinclair, author of the Jungle, was merely a willing stooge to this line of thinking.
It could be argued the subsequent perversion of capitalism throughout the rest of the century along with massive accumulation of profit and power was the result of those and similar laws and movements. The irony is that leftists now bemoan the very thing their favored legislation helped to produce.
Long story short, I don’t care nor do I trust what Bill Gates has to say, nor do I think he has the best interest of the average American in mind. He’s an oligopolist profiteer.
Is that judgy? Perhaps. But fool me once…
