I suppose so.
But the way I see it, they think they are principled. They like the commercial kinds of support and freedoms. They dislike many of the human freedoms.
So let's extract coal and burn it - commercial freedom.
Let's not worry about environmental effects - human freedom (ie breathable air).
Let's allow the banks to take risks - commercial freedom.
Let's not worry about the fact that the risk is borne by taxpayers - human freedom (ie from other people's risks).
Essentially, they make a lot of money by passing along invisible costs to consumers. Because the costs are invisible, people don't notice them immediately. But they exist all the same. And the poverty they create is real (in the form of costs associated with asthma or lung cancer, say, or of bailing out the global banking system). That's how a lot of these guys are making their money: by not bearing these kinds of costs which they are generating.
It's a really cool gig if you don't give a damn, or you are too dumb to spot what it is you are doing to other people. Worth a lot to the CEOs who find ways to pass these costs along. Profits increase. The company's income statement is incomplete from a social perspective. Externalities are paid by society. They don't affect the company's bottom line.
Companies increase their profitability. Yet somehow everyone else feels poorer. Like the cost of living is increasing invisibly. Why do those health care costs rise so fast? Why is the government in deficit? - these things are connected. We're looking at the most subtle means in which costs are passed through the system from the people with a lot of money to those with a lot less. Corporate profits increase yet we are no richer.
So why should the rich pay higher taxes? Let the middle class pay the price of the negative externalities of the free market. Let the middle class pay the cost of the roads along which commerce flows and not reap the rewards of the benefits which accrue. It's my money. I made it. Don't tax wealth. That is class warfare, dammit!
Let's make sure we have small government. Big government may be big enough to notice. Big government may stop us making profits by passing along invisible costs to consumers. End this regulation now!
The thing is, if you look into things a bit more carefully, you may find, for instance, that solar power is cheaper than coal - bearing in mind the invisible costs. Curious thought. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-05/solar-energy-costs-may-already-rival-coal-spurring-installation-boom.html
Nothing is quite what it seems. Better try to make the solar power industry toxic for a while.
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