Clueless rich kids on the rise: How millennial aristocrats will destroy our future

When Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the 21st Century" was first released in English, it followed the Culture War Playbook to perfection: First came the triumphant plaudits from like-minded thinkers, followed shortly by the hasty rebuttals of their ideological opponents, followed themselves by a torrent of commentary from pundits left and right who skimmed the book before adding their own two cents. Soon, there was the predictable "unskewing" by the right, after which came the fact-checking of the "unskewers" on the left... at which point the whole process had reached its inevitable conclusion. High-traffic angles fully juiced, our treadmill news cycle moved on to the next plank in our bitter, pointless culture clash, what author William Gibson has termed our "cold civil war."

So it goes.

What's so interesting about this Kabuki dance is just how few commentators at the time bothered to note that Piketty's findings were never particularly controversial or groundbreaking. Piketty's book became such a sensation on the left precisely because it gave weight to what anyone with a pair of eyes in the real world (i.e., not Lower Manhattan, the Washington Beltway, or Silicon Valley) can already plainly see: Wealth inequality grows each and every day, while the middle class keeps getting pummeled by this Glorious Free Enterprise System. What used to be good, stable jobs are converted into temp positions or contract work -- automated, downsized or simply eliminated entirely, they're replaced in the labor market by the worst-paying, most utterly dehumanizing low-wage gigs that our much ballyhooed "job creators" can imagine and implement.

The consequences for our democracy and our economy are perilous and unlikely to be easily remedied.

Whether or not one is generally convinced by Piketty's thesis that r > g (or more plainly, that capital tends to grow at a faster rate than income without some form of outside intervention), it should be plain that in our system, the stage has been uniquely well-set for the unbridled expansion of wealth that his book describes. When the effective tax rates are lower for capital gains than for the incomes of the less affluent; when political processes are legally corrupted and circumvented for a price; when regulatory agencies are gutted, stalled, or simply staffed with careerists eager to make their way through the revolving door -- this is not a political or economic system likely to become less unequal over time.

Will this trend toward inequality continue? According to "U.S. Trust Insights on Wealth and Worth," a recent survey of wealthy Americans that aims to "[shed] light on the direction and purpose of the more than $15 trillion that will be passed across generations in high-net-worth families over the next two decades," it seems increasingly likely.

The survey, which polled 680 Americans holding at least $3 million in investable assets, unearthed a troubling trend -- the birth of a new American aristocracy. As the survey notes, "Nearly three-quarters of those over 69, and 61% of Baby Boomers, were the first generation to accumulate significant wealth. Among the younger Millennial generation, inherited wealth is more common. About two-thirds are from families in which they are the second, third or fourth generation to be wealthy." Now, it should be noted briefly that this survey relies on self-reporting, which makes these figures somewhat suspect. (More on this in a bit.) But consider two charts: The first shows the highest marginal tax rates on income and capital gains throughout the last hundred years, while the second outlines the estate tax rate during the same period.

It's hard not to notice that sudden dip in both charts -- right around the late '70s and early '80s. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is when the oldest of the millennial generation's new aristocrats were being born -- into a world with far less taxation on capital gains, high incomes, and most crucially, inheritance.

In the coming years, how will this affect our society's conception of wealth and the American Dream? How will it affect our politics?

Before we go any further, it should be noted that the wealth of the super-rich is notoriously hard to measure. Oftentimes, these individuals -- having gained prominence in society due to their money and stature -- have the means and the desire to hide the true extent of their fortunes. This is a big part of the reason that Piketty, along with fellow economists Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman et al., have gained such esteem for their research compiling wealth statistics from the last couple hundred years; it's the most comprehensive collection of data on privately held wealth ever created. Their work is a departure from the self-reporting that studies like U.S. Trust's have traditionally relied upon, and so I was curious as to how they might respond to these findings. I reached out to Professor Saez via email to see what he thought of these conclusions -- despite their obvious shortcomings. "When this generation leaves its wealth to their children," he agrees, "then indeed top wealth will become much more aristocratic. It's possible that the U.S. Trust survey is already picking up this trend. Certainly, absent any significant increase in estate and gift taxation, this trend will accelerate in the near future."

And right on cue, enter stage left -- a fresh new wave of (many wealthy) millennial Congressional candidates. Enthusiastic and idealistic, these young Americans paradoxically promote a style of bland, Washington Consensus politics, what Pennsylvania House candidate (and proud millennial) Nick Troiano has billed "radical centrism." As a generation generally lauded for our commitment to civil service, noted for our love of structure, and gently mocked for our aversion to risk-seeking, surely we must be the perfect generation to fix America's broken politics... Right?

Consider two current House Representatives born right on the edge of the millennial generation, Democrats Patrick Murphy (31) and Joseph Kennedy III (33). Their politics are quite divergent, but their individual circumstances are depressingly similar: Both are young white men from wealthy families who attended exclusive private schools starting at an early age. Patrick Murphy is a former Republican who switched parties to defeat conservative wacko Allen West (for which all Americans surely owe him a debt of gratitude). His politics might best be described as "smarmy," a confusing hodgepodge of positions seemingly intended to appease his right-leaning Florida district. He's pro-Keystone XL, pro-pointless Benghazi hearings and pro marriage equality. He says he supports "fiscal responsibility," which is a nice way of saying that he's a wolf in sheep's clothing, a center-right politician who wears a donkey pin on his lapel. He's young enough to surely see the writing on the wall, to sense that the Republican brand is toxic to the majority of his generation.

Joseph Kennedy III's politics are somewhat less objectionable, which only serves to underscore the deeper problems at play. A fifth generation politician, it seems fair to characterize Kennedy as the poster child of our new American aristocracy. Agreeing with his positions on some issues won't change the underlying problem -- a system that's far too likely to keep all but the wealthiest voices out of political power.

With a few notable exceptions, the latest batch of millennial candidates aren't any better. Almost universally children of wealth and privilege, most embrace some token aspects of social liberalism while hurrying to display their fiscally conservative bona fides. They represent the status quo of the affluent, the powerful -- the inherited wisdom of a political class that has overseen decades of economic failure for all but the wealthiest among us. When compared with other candidates, most of their positions are uncontroversial -- which only makes their grand pronouncements about changing Washington all the more disheartening. If these candidates are in any way representative of the next class of Americans who are both willing and able to run for national office (and I suspect that they are), they should give pause to anyone who thinks that a new generation is coming of age who will rescue our captured politics.

Up until now, Pennsylvania Independent Nick Troiano and Republican Mike Turner have received the bulk of the media's attention. (Turner recently lost his primary bid despite outspending his opponent 3-1.) Troiano has been in the public eye for a while, most prominently as one of the founders of "The Can Kicks Back," a tragicomic millennial astroturfing outfit that tried to sell billionaire debt-alarmist Pete Peterson's ideological vision to young people (slashing entitlement programs so that his gazillionaire buddies won't be forced to help shoulder the programs' expanding costs). The Can Kicks Back has been a monumental failure; the group has struggled to stay solvent, characterized as "nearly broke" by internal emails discovered by Politico reporter Byron Tau last February. But this is America, and kids from upper-class families and cushy private schools always manage to "fail up." Rather than departing from politics or taking on a more humble role, Troiano has opted to foist his entitlement reform obsession upon the voters of Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional district. As for Mike Turner, at least he was honest about being a Republican: Turner's campaign went viral recently when Mother Jones ran a story titled "This Millennial Bro Is Running for Congress Using the Family Trust Fund," which is pretty much everything you need to know about former candidate Mike Turner.

Examining the full slate of the millennials running for Congress this term, a troubling trend emerges. Despite varying slightly on a number of other (mostly social) issues, the majority of these candidates display an almost monomaniacal obsession with "entitlement reform" and balancing the budget, as if that were the only long-term crisis facing young Americans. (It isn't. At all. Even a bit.)