[kmeisthax]

Unfortunately you can't vote None of the Above :/

Support among the US political class for copyright and patent law runs so deep that the main argument for untangling our economy from China's is not "they undercut US labor" or "they manipulate their currency" but "they steal our IP". An interesting choice of words, because that's an exclusive 'we'[0]. US voters have little need for copyrights and patents beyond ensuring that creative works get made. But the US political class is utterly dependent on their continued existence.

BTW, this even extends to Trumpism. Trump was very vocal about China stealing "our IP." The US economy is structured such that you cannot become rich without owning copyrights, patents, oil fields, or real estate. Everything else will be thrown into the abyss of partial post-scarcity.

[0] In some languages (not English) there's an inclusive 'we' and an exclusive 'we'. The latter would be used with the same implication as, say, "We've won the lottery - except for you."

[sidlls]

I'm not sure if you meant "you cannot become rich without owning copyrights, patents, oil fields, or real estate" literally or not, but it's not really true in any case. There are plenty of people (doctors, dentists, lawyers, software engineers, small business owners) who become wealthy without owning any of those things. Not as wealthy as those who do, perhaps, but wealthy nonetheless. I'm one of them--a lucky IPO that occurred a few years after I started working at my current employer turned me from an indebted paycheck-to-paycheck engineer into someone who could retire tomorrow and still live a decent middle-class lifestyle on my investments. I didn't own real estate until I after I got rich.

[jachee]

You benefitted from that IPO likely because you owned (shares of) profitable IP which, given the company went public, were likely protected by copyright and/or patents.

[b800h]

> doctors, dentists, lawyers, software engineers, small business owners

Felix Dennis would contend that such people aren't "wealthy". They're comfortable.

[sidlls]

Being in that class of people, I’d contend Felix Dennis’ view of what wealth is is poor.

It may take a decade or two, but individuals in these professions who work at top tier roles will be wealthy by any reasonable measure (7-figure investment portfolios and no bad debt is “wealthy” to anyone without a very uninformed understanding of what the word means).

[kmeisthax]

I'll rephrase the above comments: having seven figures of assets or income confers material wealth but not political control. Political capital is far more expensive. At a minimum, you need so much money that hiring a team of lobbyists to confuse your local congresscritter is a petty cash drawer expense. Ideally you will also want to forefeit your right to privacy and become some kind of a public figure.

A case study here would be Louis Rossman: rich enough to run a MacBook repair business but not rich enough to bribe/tip Congress into passing a right-to-repair law.