re: Why Do People Hate "The Rich" So Much?

A combination of envy and rationalization. Most people lack the work ethic, drive, native talent, and intelligence to capitalize on the plethora of opportunities in a free market. But they aren't self-aware enough to recognize their limitations, honest enough to acknowledge them, or diligent enough to overcome them. So rather than blaming their station on their own shortcomings and trying to improve themselves, they develop an elaborate mythology - aided by the press and politicians who want to manipulate them - that they have been thwarted by an inequitable and corrupt system that refuses to recognize their worth. In this mythology, the wealthy, rather than being lauded as individual achievers, are condemned as the benefactors and architects of the dastardly system. The masses - again, driven by the jealous press and the ambitious political class - band together to use the levers of government (e.g. taxes and regulation) to seize the wealth they could not earn based on merit. In return for this service, politicians accumulate ever greater power. The mythology is quite tidy from a psychological perspective, because it insulates individuals from their own faults while simultaneously providing them with a flimsy moral justification for confiscating the things other people earned with hard work. The battle in this country is between wealth distribution based on individual merit and wealth redistribution based on claims of mass grievance and identity politics (which is just a proxy for grievance). If the latter wins, and it may have already, we're done.