But I don't think Americans are punitive. They're not deeply troubled by the mere fact that there is someone out there with $8 billion. To the extent they care about billionaires, they're concerned about whether they're paying a fair amount to support the county that gave them so much. And from that perspective, what matters is the aggregate income of the group. And $130-150 billion just isn't much compared to the $6-7 trillion in annual government spending in the U.S.
Politicians thrive by disguising the punitive outlook as a practical outlook. They point to how much money Zuckerberg or Bezos have, and quickly pivot to how they could pay for universal healthcare, universal education, etc. A necessary aspect of that strategy is keeping people ignorant of the fact that even confiscating the total income of every billionaire would only pay for say 25% of U.S. higher education spending, or 4% of U.S. health spending.
I don't think this is a remotely justifiable belief. We have the highest prisoner rate per capita, we sanction anyone the second they step out of line, and the entire two prior decades have been shaped by a collective trauma that pushed us into seeking retributive justice against anyone--regardless of their actual role.
I fail to remember which Puerto Rican uprising this was during, but there was a mother who was jailed for the crime of making her husband and children breakfast. When slavery was finally ended, the 10 years of reconstruction was met immediately with horrific acts of terrorism and reactionary violence to reassert white supremacy.
Punitive Justice is a core tenet of the American civil religion.
He’s talking about the aggregate income earned by the group. So the delta in individual incomes is offset by the massive delta in group sizes.