Pity The Poor Plutocrats

Here is the text of a letter in the Wall Street Journal from billionaire Tom Perkins:

Regarding your editorial "Censors on Campus" (Jan. 18): Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

Not surprisingly, the letter was met with a firestorm of criticism. His own firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, tweeted the following message:

Tom Perkins has not been involved in KPCB in years. We were shocked by his views expressed today in the WSJ and do not agree.

In response to the criticism, Perkins did an interview on Bloomberg TV in which he stated his regret at using the inflammatory term "Kristallnacht," but stoutly defended the substance of his argument. Click here for an article on MailOnline, affiliated with the British newspaper Daily Mail, by Alex Greig. Some quotes from the article:

The appearance was less an apology and more a re-assertion of his viewpoints, with some bragging about his wealth thrown in.

Perkins said he used the word because during Occupy San Francisco, 'they broke the windows at Wells Fargo bank, they marched up to our automobile strip and broke all the windows in the luxury car dealerships.'

He noticed police standing by watching, he said, and thought, 'Well, this is how Kristallnacht began.'

Interviewer Emily Chang questions Perkins as to the relevance of the analogy, to which Perkins responds:

'The Jews were only one per cent of the German population. Most Germans had never met a Jew. And yet Hitler was able to demonize the Jews,' he said.

'My point was that when you start to use hatred against a minority, it can get out of control. The creative one per cent are threatened.'

When asked what should be done to improve the lives of 'the 99 per cent,' Perkins said, 'I think that the solution is less interference, lower taxes, let the rich do what the rich do — which is get richer, and along the way they bring everybody else along with them, when the system is working.'

Bafflingly, Perkins took the opportunity to point out that his watch - a Richard Mille - 'could buy a six-pack of Rolexes' ... [the watch sells for $380,000].

Mr Perkins, 82, was educated at MIT before gaining an MBA from Harvard. He founded Venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1973 and has served as a director on boards of companies including Compaq.

He recently spent $150 million building a super yacht called Maltese Falcon and lives on a 60th floor, 5,500ft penthouse overlooking San Francisco Bay.

'The parallel of Nazi Germany and some people getting kind of annoyed by the tech bro dudes is exactly ZERO,' Kaili Joy Gray [Daily Kos's "Angry Mouse"] wrote on the Wonkette blog.

Author and New York Times writer Steven Greenhouse tweeted: 'As someone who lost numerous relatives to the Nazi gas chambers, I find statements like this revolting & inexplicable.'