Mo' Money, Mo' Freedom

"Freedom, they claimed..."

In “American” tradition, freedom could be defined as the right to live independently, make your own choices, and chart your own path to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is assumed that this form of American Freedom should shy away from undue interference by government or others. In theory, capitalism promises that wealth enables precisely that kind of freedom: more money means more choices. It determines where to live, how to spend, when to retire, how to care for your family, how to invest for the future. For many, success under capitalism has meant autonomy. The old timers would say, “Strap up your boots and do it the American Way.” In reality, wealth buys more security (and safety), opportunity, and the ability to act without consequences of the common working person.

At first glance, this seems pretty unimaginable, but the more you earn, the more optional many necessities become. With enough wealth, you no longer rely on a single paycheck. You can weather economic shocks, diversify portfolios, and don’t have to worry about day to day expenses like everyday working Americans. You can afford the best education, best quality healthcare, access to the best investments, or even explore multiple avenues of entrepreneurship. At that level, money is not just income. It becomes Freedom.

But the problem is structural in this country. In the modern U.S., wealth concentration has skyrocketed, and with it, a growing disconnect between the wealthy elite and everyone else. That imbalance undermines the freedom of most Americans even as it excessively favors and unfairly empowers a few hundred people over the masses..

According to recent analyses, the wealth gap in the U.S. is now similar to that of the first “Gilded Age.” The top 1% of households own many times the wealth of the median household. A few hundred people hold more wealth than 174 million people combined. What this means is that for a small minority, freedom remains very real and easily attainable. But for the vast majority of average working class people, options are shrinking. Their ability to control their own lives (i.e. to choose where to live, when to retire, to start a business or send kids to college) is becoming more contingent on forces outside their control. In reality, in 2025, US businesses are suffering. Political policies are causing wage stagnation, tariffs are causing economic catastrophe on a global scale. And Americans voted for this. They continue to vote for a system that is tilted towards the capitalist “slave owners”, “billionaire class”, “predator class”, or “our 2025 version of Robber Barons.”.

One primary reason this happens is directly correlated to how policy has shifted over decades. The transfer of massive wealth upward. This president paid $0 in federal income tax over a ten year period beginning in the year 2000. I am not a billionaire and I know that I paid at tens of thousands of dollars in Federal Income Taxes during that same period. “Well how do they do that, though”, you might ask? They do it through tax cuts for capital and the wealthy, deregulation, and favorable rules for investors. That means the wealthy pay less taxes, so the working class must pay more to fund basic governmental activities. These tax loopholes and policies only benefit the powerful.

Here is an example. There are current laws in place that treat capital gains, dividends, and inherited wealth more leniently. That means they are taxed less. It means that these laws effectively reward wealth simply for their presence or existence. That means those who already have wealth continue accumulating more, often without doing any more additional work (themselves). But where does this wealth come from? It does not exist in a vacuum. It is transferred from the working class to the elite, American aristocracy. Over time, this gap becomes drastic. We have only seen this divide of wealth from top to bottom during the First Gilded Age. The extremely wealthy have the ability to accumulate capital (money to operate a business) generates passive income and financial security, which is actual, real freedom. On the flipside, workers depending on labor see very little positive improvements or gains over long periods of time. It reinforces the old saying, “It takes money to make money.”

Everyone knows that “Money Buys Power”. Financial contributions lead to influence, which ultimately leads to favor. When those in power are owed “favors”, who is our government working for? And favor leads to Political Clout (i.e. MORE POWER). Research on contemporary U.S. politics shows that when a small elite holds a disproportionate share of the nation’s assets, they wield dominance in shaping laws, regulations, and public policy. The result is a government that listens less to working class Americans and instead, cater to the priorities of the wealthy. When policy is crafted to preserve and expand existing fortunes rather than reduce inequality, by design, the capitalists and American Financial Aristocrisy made those laws or purchased the power to influence those laws for their own benefit. And, for everyone else, we’re scrambling to divide a smaller slice of pie than we ordered. Everyone except for the extremely wealthy are pushed further to the margins.

This concentration does not expand freedom for most people. Billionaires making decisions for all of us do not benefit the non wealthy. As the elite have purchased power, the rest of working class Americans have lost influence (and favor) with this president. The rules of the tax code game, subsidies, and regulation have been rewritten in favor of those already on top. People in this country truly need to go pick up a history book and look at the events that followed the “Gilded Age.” Because those changes resulted in laws already on the books. But this president refused to actually enforce “all of the laws”...only the ones that are convenient for the Wealthy Elites at the top of American Society. The ability to get ahead through work ethic or innovation shrinks, reduces, and gets much smaller. Instead, success increasingly requires access to capital or connections (money…that one obtains from “lenders.”). That is not the freedom that millions of American patriots once envisioned.

Now, many Trump supporters believe that a second Trump presidency would restore American greatness, economic growth, and personal freedom. I believed that in 2016. But fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me every day?......yeah…I’m not buying it. But here is reality that you won’t hear on Fox News, NewsMaxx, OANN, or any right wing major media outlets. The economic policies associated with Trump, especially corporate tax cuts, favorable tax related decisions to benefit the ultra wealthy, deregulation, and prioritizing wealthy donors, influencers, and insiders. These policies have definitively and systematically deepened inequality and enriched a narrow, small margin of people in this country that have always been there: the entitled elite. All of this occurs while the system designed for us has been changed to benefit them. It has left ordinary Americans more dependent on inconsistent wages, uncertain markets, crypto, instability due to tariffs, and a system increasingly controlled by the wealthy few.

In practice, that means less real freedom for workers. Rather than being able to retire with dignity and enjoy their lives, many must keep working because of financial necessity. Rather than being able to leave jobs they hate or start businesses, they must cling to jobs because of healthcare costs, rising housing costs, increased debt, and external forces that lead to financial uncertainty. Bills don’t pay themselves and life always throws financial curve balls. Rather than having a stable financial and economic foundation to build a secure life, they rely on economic conditions set by people far removed from their daily struggles…people that have made money only because they were born with money or had financial opportunities to obtain capital that most don’t have access to.

It’s a paradox. And for those of you that don’t know what paradox means, the Oxford Dictionary defines paradox as: “a seemingly absurd or self contradictory statement or proposition. That when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true. While rhetoric about freedom and “M’erican” self-reliance thrives, the structure of the modern American economy (again, policies influenced by the ultra wealthy) leads forces far too many into dependency on wages or credit, diminishing their real autonomy and self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, the wealthy accumulate freedom through wealth, freedom to influence politics, mold/shape institutions, and preserve their privilege across generations. I cannot fathom having that much money.

The definition of “American freedom” has changed. It does not mean opportunity for all, but security for few favored individuals and certain groups of people. It means that our country’s promise of upward mobility becomes a false promise of gold at the end of the rainbow, when in reality, it’s only a pipe dream. Again, it’s fool’s gold and like I said before, we are currently in the middle of the Second Gilded Age in the United States. And it means that people have been unknowingly advocating for policies that benefit the “rich folk”, while under a false flag of freedom and make believe white Christian Nationalist patriotism rooted in unrecognized bias towards the marginalized and vulnerable. Sadly, the results of the 2024 election have led towards the empowerment of the ultra wealthy at the expense of freedom of the majority.

For Trump supporters who care about liberty, patriotism, and economic independence, I pose a few questions. Some people may get rich and the majority of people will never be wealthy. But here is my question:

“Does every person born in the US have the ability to shape our own lives, choose our own paths, build our own futures, and live our lives without those financial resources at least possibly available? When wealth concentration and political influence become too intertwined, the promise of actual freedom for THE MAJORITY of Americans is sacrificed for the freedom of the few, wealthy, elites. And in my own opinion, there should be no quarrel between the left and right. The quarrel is misdirected and should be from the people united against the elite. Again, this is supposed to be a government for the people, by the people. Are you satisfied with our government being a government for the ultra wealthy by the ultra wealthy at the expense of the working class people?

It is time to recognize that more wealth (and more reliance on wealth-based privilege) does not equal more freedom for ALL OF US… However, it does lead to more freedom for those that already have full bellies with extra to spare. For real liberty and opportunity to flourish, we need a system that empowers people broadly, not just the wealthy elite.

And I’ll finish this with a few last thoughts. I cannot vacation wherever and whenever I want due to financial resources. I will likely never own a luxury condo in Manhattan. I will likely never drive a Ferrarri or go to space. But those limitations do not exist to billionaires. I’ll never date multiple supermodels or own a mansion. I’ve always heard that “Money can’t buy happiness”, but it can buy more freedom and opportunities. It’s the sad reality of living in a capitalist society.