The Sheep Discover How Money Becomes Power

The sheep have concluded that America’s tax system does not just protect wealth. It helps turn wealth into political power, and political power into more wealth.

The sheep have been studying the American tax system and have reached a darker conclusion.

It is not merely designed to protect wealth. It is designed to convert wealth into power, and then power back into more wealth, until democracy starts to look less like self-government and more like a valet service for billionaires.

The flock had once assumed rich people simply enjoyed having large homes, small consciences, and opinions about interest rates. But the sheep now understand that great fortunes are not content to sit quietly in an account like a well-behaved pile of money. They migrate. They fund campaigns, finance super PACs, underwrite think tanks, seed media operations, hire lobbyists, endow institutions, and generally move through the political system like a scented fog that keeps ending up in the room where policy is written.

Janet explained that the arrangement is actually quite elegant in its corruption. First, the wealthy use their money to influence who gets elected. Then, once the elected officials arrive in Washington, those same wealthy interests are waiting with policy wish lists, donor dinners, and a helpful explanation for why taxes on capital should remain low, regulations should remain light, and government should continue behaving as though concentrated private wealth is a sign of national virtue rather than a public hazard.

Marvin called it “pre-bribery,” which Fancy Pants said was not technically the legal term, but was emotionally correct. Whitney said the entire system had the energy of a country where teachers need to hold bake sales while hedge fund managers can effectively rent a senator for the price of a Nantucket kitchen renovation. Bruce and Frankie asked whether oligarchy had bottle service.

The sheep said the most impressive part is how this is all described as freedom. Not freedom for ordinary people to shape public life, of course. Freedom for the ultra-rich to turn money into influence, influence into favors, and favors into even more money, while everyone else is told this is just how representative government works.