Recently the progressive blogosphere was abuzz with approving links to billionaire investor Warren Buffett's latest New York Times op-ed,
"Stop Coddling the Super Rich." In this piece, Buffett concisely exposes the various loopholes that allow the wealthiest Americans to pay far fewer taxes than their middle class, working class, and poor counterparts. While the tax code in all its complexity certainly privileges the wealthy at the expense of most Americans, this barely scratches the surface of the ways the state oppresses poor and working people to line the pockets of the opulent. Buffett's article never mentions direct corporate welfare or the numerous privileges that the wealthy hold thanks to intellectual property, the land monopoly, regulatory barriers to entry, suppression of labor movements, and imperialism, to name a few. To illustrate the extent to which government intervention privileges the super rich at the expense of everyone else, I will examine Warren Buffett's stock portfolio and expose how his wealth stems from violence, coercion, imperialism, and statism.
