Why the rich & billionaires are not patriotic? and should not run for Public Office?
Rich are subtly blackmailing their own country
Is it not slightly blackmailing the country by the rich whenever they say they will take their wealth away to some other country if they have to pay any tax whatsoever on their wealth? Is it not like a parent telling their kids that they are not going to pay for their Ice cream if they don’t simply obey them? It could be doing a homework or cleaning their room or getting good grades. It is usually done with good intentions that aligns with the interests of their kids.
Let’s explore this analogy even more. Can children buy an ice cream themselves? no. Children can’t afford it if they don’t get money from their parents. Parents are calling the shots on what their kids should or should not have, including the Ice cream. So that their children could learn something useful or do something productive, in the hopes that, by engaging in those activities, they could develop a sense of responsibility for themselves or inculcate some discipline in their life. So that they don’t end up spoiled with bad teeth. This is a form of strong persuasion, but it is not arising out of selfish instincts. In fact, no parent likes this when they have to resort to the tactic of, metaphorically speaking, twisting their children arms into doing whatever they want, nor do the children like having their privileges cut down – taking away their ice cream.
However, this is where the analogy doesn’t hold up so well. The rich are telling their countries that they are not going to stay if they have to pay any wealth tax. It is not out of love towards their country they are doing this. They are not doing this because they want to see their country prosper. They are only doing this to keep their wealth as much as possible and they don’t care about the country they made their wealth from. The country is just like another employee in their organization working day & night making money for them.
Another thing is, going back to the analogy, parents didn’t make any money from their children, whereas the rich used all kinds of resources available in the country – natural and human and of course, the laws they could get the country to pass in their favor to amass the wealth. Now, they think it is not part of nation’s wealth.
This leads to the obvious question – are the Rich patriotic? Let’s explore the question in the next section.
Rich are not patriotic
They act like they are serving the nation, even more so than a soldier or a farmer or a doctor or a teacher. If they were really serving, it is not the only one country they would be serving. Many of their companies have branches in many countries.In fact, they take pride in calling their companies by the short form-MNCs. They might have diversified their business revenue, so have their loyalty. If foreign countries are generating more revenue, they would make those countries a priority, simply because the of company’s bottom-line.
Not to mention the increasingly unethical practices they follow, like they might be an owner of a business that follows anti-competitive practices like constantly fixing the price behind the scenes and confidently breaking the law because they know they can getaway with it.
If they are not threatening to take their wealth away from the country, they are literally fleeing the country after they were caught amassing the wealth illegally and here is a small list taken from the answer given to the question asked in loksabha.
| Rank | Fugitive Economic Offender(s) | Associated Group/Company | Principal Amount at NPA (₹ Crore) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vijay Mallya | Kingfisher Airlines | 10,356.39 |
| 2 | Sandesara Group (Nitin, Chetan, Dipti Sandesara) | Sterling Biotech / Group | 8,683.05 |
| 3 | Nirav Modi | Firestar Group | 7,910.23 |
| 4 | Sudharshan Venkataraman & Ramanujam Sesharathinam | Zylog Systems Ltd | 655.21 |
| 5 | Pushpesh Kumar Baid | — | 43.95 |
If you are wondering about the total damage to country, here is the number taken from The Hindu:
Just nine Fugitive Economic Offenders owed ₹58,000 crore, of which ₹19,000 crore was recovered.
If all these numbers say anything, it is that they don’t care about the country because they know how to cover it up with good PR firm and also by bribing officials to look the other way.
So, the relationship between wealthy individuals especially billionaires and their country is not that of a parent-child, but it is more like an orphan child who used to work in factories before child labor was abolished. The child has no option but to do everything the factory owner says. Otherwise, the child will lose the sole income which is huge, if not everything, for the child. On the other hand, the income paid for the child labor is a tiny negligible expense for the factory owner. Yet, the child labor has to bear all the daily abuse and emotional torture coming from owner.
This is the relationship that best fits the description of billionaires and the countries they are living in. It is not that the Billionaires are not patriotic just because they say they will take their wealth to some tax-haven countries. It is also because they have become way more powerful than the countries. They know it because they are the ones who are running the country instead of people running the country in the so-called democracy. If they are running the country, do they really have to run away from the country.
Rich should not run for public office
It naturally follows that if they are not patriotic, they should not run for public office. However they are other reasons as well. Let’s explore them below.
If the rich are already running the country behind the scenes to advance their own interest, what are they going to accomplish when they get elected for public offices? serve the public as opposed to their own interest? If they were really concerned about public interest in the first place, they would’ve worked towards public interest rather personal interest.
To people who say they are not mutually exclusive, I would say you gotta wake up. Otherwise, yes, they are serving the country, if you say so, that they are serving both public & personal interest by ruining monopoly businesses and not paying their fair share of taxes and illegally amassing wealth by financially ruining the banks with NPAs. If it not were Capital Infusion to PSBs, the banking industry would still be in bad shape. All thanks to public’s tax payers money for saving it.
They only care about themselves. It is like the saying by the legendary comedian George Carlin -“It is a big club, you ain’t in it.”
The best example for rich caring only about themselves is getting countries to either repeal wealth tax or cutting them down to insignificant level.
The shrinking list of countries with wealth taxes is itself part of the story. In 1990, 12 OECD countries levied a net wealth tax. Today, the number is four.
Conclusion
If they make threats that they would move to another country, they don’t really care about their country or Motherland. They are putting their wealth before their country. So, for them, it is not the country that they show loyalty towards. It is always their money they are loyal to. So, they are not patriotic. To prove their loyalty, they are even willing to go as far as breaking the law and running away from their motherland only to become fugitives.
