Jim's Reviews > Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense

In this new era of corporate bailouts and stimulus packages, it's funny to watch some of our elected officials pontificate about the evils of "socialism," seeing as these same officials have spent the last thirty years building a corporate welfare state. David Johnston shows how the working and middle classes have been compelled to further enrich (through taxes, eminent domain seizures, and judicial fiat) the already wealthy.

I suppose I already knew about (or at least suspected) quite a bit of this regressive redistribution. Most communities have had experience of their elected officials giving tax breaks and other subsidies to "big box" stores so these can move in and kill off downtown business districts. The Supreme Court has ruled that government can seize private property under eminent domain and turn it over to another private entity. Professional sports franchises browbeat local authorities into subsidizing the building of deluxe stadiums.

This is one of those books you read if you want to get angry and outraged. Johnston provides example after example of the wealthy and powerful, with government's collusion, taking whatever they want and stepping on the people under them. He shows how these abuses are perpetuated by a cycle of wealthy people donating to political campaigns and elected officials skewing the system in favor of those wealthy people. As the author points out, this all goes against the ideas set forth by Adam Smith or Judeo-Christian ethics. The irony is that many of these same elected officials and scions of wealth love to cite Smith or Jesus as examples of how we should run society.

I do have a big problem with this book. Johnston indicates that this collusion between government and the wealthy is a systemic problem. Yet, he fails to deal with it in any sort of systemic fashion. This book is a loosely linked series of articles, light on in-depth analysis or policy prescriptions. Having my brain's outrage center poked repeatedly tended to make me a little numb.