$50 trillion in income has been diverted from the middle class. The middle class is $35 trillion poorer than it should be. Your bank account is $250,000 smaller than it should be. Your paycheck should be 33% larger than it is today. There's only one way to fix it: No gains for the middle, no gains for the top.

To have a commonwealth, the commons must have the wealth. The middle should own half. No gains for the middle, no gains for the top. To have a commonwealth, the commons must have the wealth. The middle should own half. No gains for the middle, no gains for the top. To have a commonwealth, the commons must have the wealth. The middle should own half. No gains for the middle, no gains for the top.

$50 trillion in income has been diverted from the middle class. The middle class is $35 trillion poorer than it should be. Your bank account is $250,000 smaller than it should be. Your paycheck should be 33% larger than it is today. There's only one way to fix it: No gains for the middle, no gains for the top.

3,000 years of might makes right, interrupted by an experiment in republican government. Whether it succeeds or fails all comes down to this.

$50 trillion in income has been diverted from the middle class. The middle class is $35 trillion poorer than it should be. Your bank account is $250,000 smaller than it should be. Your paycheck should be 33% larger than it is today. There's only one way to fix it: No gains for the middle, no gains for the top.

FALL IN We still have a commonwealth, but not for much longer. Because in order to have a commonwealth, the commons must have the wealth. But our elites are killing our middle class and taking its wealth. Stand up to preserve our republic, protect your homes, and defend your children’s future. Fall in behind Operation Abigail, which alone will tame plutocracy. SITUATION REPORT In 1776, America was born a middle-class republic. In 1945, the middle class was re-born. In 2024, the middle class is dying. Common sense and political theory agree: the middle class should own at least half the wealth. The middling share is only 25%, down 5% in 35 years and $35 trillion below target. $50 trillion has been diverted from ordinary Americans to elites since 1975 relative to post-War run-rates. Upward mobility is dying. Boomers had a 90% chance of surpassing their parents; Gen X only 50%; it’s even worse for Millennials and Gen Z. DAMAGE REPORT Ordinary households are on average perhaps $250,000 poorer than they should be. The typical paycheck is perhaps 30% less than it would be, had post-War rates continued. Whereas middle-class primacy produces: Political stability, healthy markets, optimism, personal responsibility, civic virtue, strong traditions, moderate laws, modest politicians, and accountable government, Wealth concentration produces middling insecurity, which leads to: Pessimism, anger, addiction, polarization, demagoguery, dependency, patronage, cultism, and authoritarianism. Wealth concentration also: Amplifies greed, destroys the middling virtues, corrupts elections, fosters crony capitalism, narrows upward mobility, and perpetuates pre-Revolution Black wealth disparities. ENTER OPERATION ABIGAIL Vision: from the standpoint of middle-class primacy, take America back to the 1950s, without the racism and the sexism. Mission: to rebuild our middle class, optimize capitalism, and preserve our republic through one simple policy measure. Doctrine: no gains for the middle, no gains for the top. Method: median-top household wealth tethering, enforced via national incentive plan. Put plutocracy on capitalism’s own invention of the long-term incentive plan. Design the incentive plan to reward voluntary wealth de-concentration, and punish continued wealth concentration. Benchmark success against the national median household net worth. Create the incentive by tethering ultra-rich household outcomes to the national median at an efficient ratio so that elite outcomes rise and fall lockstep in proportion to middle-class outcomes. The initial ratio would be 10,000:1, setting a $1.5 billion cap. Once the ratio is in place, elites must raise the median in order to improve their own outcomes. Means: the ratio would be enforced by a tax. To defeat geographic arbitrage, the tax must be federal. To survive apportionment clause attack, the tax must be a constitutional amendment. Strategy: to build support, the amendment must: Distribute proceeds in equal shares to each State which timely ratifies it (38 required); Grandfather existing fortunes, but only to the extent repatriated to the United States; Forever prohibit wealth taxes on households below the initial $1.5 billion cap; Prohibit any new federal direct taxes or rate hikes on such households for 20 years. Impose no taxes, mandates, or regulations upon enterprises; and Suspend the tax for as long as the middle class owns at least 50% of national wealth.

America, it’s now or never. Stand up to preserve your republic, protect your wealth, and defend your children’s future. Fall in behind Operation Abigail. 

ATTENTION!!!

We still have a commonwealth, but not for much longer. Because in order to have a commonwealth, the commons must have the wealth. But our elites are killing our middle class and taking its wealth.

SITUATION REPORT

Time is short. In 1776, America was born a middle-class republic. In 1945, the middle class was re-born. In 2025, the middle class is dying. 

The common sense of ordinary Americans agrees with the genius of political philosophers and the wisdom of our Founding Fathers: The middle class should own at least half the wealth. Today, the middling share is only about 25%, down 5% in 35 years and $35 trillion below target. Over $50 trillion has been diverted from ordinary Americans to elites since 1975 relative to post-War (1945-1965) run-rates.

Making matters worse, the upward mobility delivered by 1950s-style capitalism is dying. Your typical Baby Boomer had a 90% chance of earning more than their parents. Your average Millennial? Only about a 50% chance. And it’s not getting any better. 

DAMAGE REPORT

Ordinary households are on average perhaps $250,000 poorer than they should be. The typical paycheck is perhaps 30% less than it would be, had post-War rates continued.

Wealth concentration produces middle-class insecurity, which leads to pessimism, anger, addiction, polarization, demagoguery, dependency, patronage, cultism, and authoritarianism.

Wealth concentration also amplifies greed, destroys the middling virtues, corrupts elections, fosters crony capitalism, narrows upward mobility, and perpetuates pre-Revolution Black wealth disparities which are still almost 10:1.

ENTER OPERATION ABIGAIL. 

Vision: From the standpoint of middle-class primacy, we want to take America back to the 1950s, without the racism and the sexism.

Mission: To rebuild our middle class, optimize capitalism, and preserve our republic through one simple policy measure.

Method: We will put plutocracy on capitalism’s own device of the long-term incentive plan. Operation Abigail will reward elites for middle-class gains and punish them for middle-class decline. It will achieve this through the techique of median-top household wealth tethering. Ultra-rich household outcomes would be tethered to the national median household net worth at an efficient ratio such that elite outcomes rise and fall lockstep in mathematical proportion to middle-class outcomes. Once the ratio is in place, elites must raise the median in order to improve their own outcomes. The operative rule of Operation Abigail therefore no gains for the middle, no gains for the top. The initial ratio would be 10,000:1, setting a $1.5 billion cap, subject to adjustment. Operation Abigail is literally the most capitalist policy idea ever because simply scales capitalism’s own device of the long-term incentive plan from the level of enterprise to nation. 

Means: The ratio would be enforced by a tax. To defeat geographic arbitrage, the tax must be federal. To survive apportionment clause attack, the tax must be a constitutional amendment. And once they understand that the burden will mostly fall on a handful of Wall Street and Silicon Valley billionaires, the States will gladly ratify this amendment because it would distribute all revenues to the States in equal shares.

WE WILL PREVAIL. 

Americans love Operation Abigail not only because it would preserve our middle-class republic. They also love it because it: (a) forever prohibits wealth taxes on households below the initial $1.5 billion cap; (b) prohibits any new federal direct taxes or rate hikes on such households for 20 years; and (c) exempts most small businesses from federal income taxation for 20 years!

Americans also love the fact that it would distribute all proceeds in equal shares to each State which timely ratifies it. This not only ensures that tax revenues are used according to the preferences of local constituencies – for instance South Carolina can use its share for conservative purposes, Massachusetts for progressive policies – it strengthens the principle of federalism.

Operation Abigail also puts fears of elite temper tantrums to rest because it treats them more fairly than they’ve treated our middle class. Operation Abigail grandfathers existing fortunes, but only to the extent they are repatriated to the United States, and provided further that their owners are not convicted of certain crimes and that they extricate themselves from our politics after the next presidential election. This avoids unfair wealth confiscation, discourages capital flight, and cleanses our republic of meddlesome crony plutocrats. It also sets the wealth ceiling high enough (initially $1.5 billion) to preserve incentives for entrepreneurship, innovation, and risk. 

I endorse Operation Abigail, the Adams Institute’s plan to rebuild America’s middle class. I give this endorsement because I understand these truths:

First, that in order to have a commonwealth, the commons must have the wealth. Authentic republican government is impossible without an authentic middle class. Only an independent and optimistic middle class has political agency. History furnishes no example of any democratic or popular republic which was ever sustained by a dependent underclass. As Thomas Jefferson observed: “Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.” Alexander Hamilton likewise noted: “A power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.”

Second, that 50 years of wealth concentration has deprived the middle class of its optimism and independence. Nominal wage and GDP growth conceals the ugly reality behind a gilded façade: Since the Bicentennial, about $50 trillion in income has been diverted from ordinary workers to the top 10% relative to post-war run-rates. Whereas common sense has held since Classical Antiquity that the middle class should own at least half the wealth, America’s middling share is now below 30%; over $30 trillion off-target, and down 5% in 40 years. Middle-class anxiety fuels America’s rising anger, pessimism, polarization, faction, demagoguery, patronage, and authoritarianism more than any other factor. As James Madison wrote: “The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.” Such faction will, as George Washington warned: “gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual.”

Third, that Operation Abigail is faithful not only to America’s founding philosophy but also to modern capitalism. Indeed, Operation Abigail scales up capitalism’s own invention of the long-term incentive plan to the national level. Operation Abigail works by capping, as by tethering, the outcomes of the top households to a multiple of the national median household net worth at an efficient mathematical ratio. Once this ratio is in place, the outcomes of ultra-rich households collectively wielding market power would rise and fall lockstep with the median. Economic elites cannot thereafter enjoy any further gains except in proportion to middle-class gains. Such gains would refresh the consumer markets which in turn nourish capitalism. As a true incentive plan, Operation Abigail does not regulate enterprise or impose any specific mandates. The methods used to achieve wealth de-concentration – and the consequences of failure – fall entirely upon market actors. Operation Abigail was thus conceived as a modern measure to heed the timeless wisdom of John Adams: 

“Property monopolized, or in the Possession of a Few is a Curse to Mankind. We should preserve not an Absolute Equality – this is unnecessary, but preserve all from extreme Poverty, and all others from extravagant Riches.”

This endorsement was joined by:

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Even if every American was a Socrates every American is distracted, so we’ll make this quick: In order to have a commonwealth, the commons must have the wealth. To preserve our republic, we must rebuild our middle class. This is Operation Abigail’s mission.

When ordinary workers earn a decent living (1945-1965) the interests of the middle class and the ultra-rich don’t conflict. But when the middle class is plundered (1975-2025) the preferences of billionaires must take the back seat. The mission of preserving our democratic-republican form of government takes priority to all conflicting values, other than basic constitutional rights. Property rights are sacred, but all great fortunes facilitated by public support are subject to a public claim, asserted through the state’s power of taxation. 

Any notion conflicting with the value of middle-class primacy – such as the idea of government efficiency, nominal stock market and GDP values (often manipulated and meaningless to most in plutocracy), and silly debunked nonsense cult theories like “laissez faire” and “trickle-down” – must yield to the project of rebuilding our middle class and restoring 1950s-style upward mobility.

Our priorities being clear, we present Operation Abigail’s main features, designed to balance various interests while restoring America’s middle class to its former glory:

1. Operation Abigail protects ordinary households from more taxes.

This meme highlights a key benefit of Operation Abigail to virtually all American taxpayers. Operation Abigail would protect ordinary households from wealth taxes forever, and prohibits any federal direct tax (including income tax) rate hikes for 20 years. The only households not protected are those whose net worth exceeds the then-effective median-top ratio, which would initially be 10,000x the median, or approsimately $1.5 billion. Less than 800 households currently exceed that ceiling.

The 20-year moratorium on direct tax rate hikes is drawn from Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 in the Constitution, which employed the same 20-year period as part of a compromise to incentivize ratification. 

If you want this guarantee to become a reality, blast this meme across social media!!!

2. Operation Abigail protects entrepreneurs and small businesses.

This meme highlights a key benefit of Operation Abigail to all American businesses. Operation Abigail would exempt from all federal taxation, for all businesses, the first otherwise taxable dollars up to the Business Revenue Exemption Ceiling for 20 years. The Business Revenue Exemption Ceiling is an amount equal to 10x the last-published national median household net worth, which is currently about $150,000, setting the Business Revenue Exemption Ceiling at approximately $1.5 million. This amount would rise or fall lockstep with the national median.

This would exempt the vast majority (likely over 90%) of small businesses from any federal taxation. Small businesses comprise approximately 99% of businesses, employ about 45% of Americans, and are responsible for more than 50% of job growth. Meanwhile, corporate tax receipts are approximately 7% of federal receipts, so the benefits of this feature would easily outweigh the costs.

The 20-year moratorium is likewise drawn from Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 in the Constitution.

3. Operation Abigail stops the bleeding.

This estimates the per-household impact on net worth of deviation from the Aristotelian-Harringtonian-intuitive ideal that the middle class should own at least 50% of national wealth, relative to Federal Reserve Numbers. [MATH FORTHCOMING]

4. Operation Abigail protects those who actually work for a living. 

This estimates the per-worker impact on income-diversion relative to 1946-1965 run-rates based on the RAND computations showing $50 trillion has been diverted to top 10% relative to postwar counterfactual. [MATH FORTHCOMING].

5. Operation Abigail must reverse 50 years of bad habits.

This meme shows the immense toll that middle-class plunder has taken upon the backbone of our republic in the past 50 years. [SUPPORT FORTHCOMING]

The valor of the Greatest Generation truly purchased a peace that their descendants abused to plunder the labor of their grandchildren, for the sum of these damages exceeds the entire aggregate net worth of the Axis powers of Japan, Germany, and Italy!

6. Operation Abigail serves the supreme authority in our constitutional system: the States.

This meme communicates the revenue benefits to the States arising from Operation Abigail. [MATH FORTHCOMING].

For general uses and constitutional structure, associate to Thomas Jefferson’s second inaugural: “…the revenue thereby liberated may, by a just repartition among the states, and a corresponding amendment of the constitution, be applied, -in time of peace-, to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great objects within each state.”

For educational purposes, associate to John Adams’ revolutionary writings: “The preservation of the means of knowledge, among the lowest ranks, is of more importance to the public, than all the property of all the rich men in the country. It is even of more consequence to the rich themselves, and to their posterity.” Dissertation, 1765.

They can’t debate our guiding principle: The bigger the middle class, the better. They can’t debate the numbers. The middle class is dying. They can’t debate the betrayal: The middle class has been stabbed in the back by its own plutocracy, and both Republicans and Democrats are letting it happen.

So why object to Operation Abigail? Here are some of the most common objections, with responses:

Response: We agree that would be ideal. Operation Abigail was conceived by a conservative republican who used to force other cadets to salute a portrait of Ronald Reagan when he attended The Citadel. Blame plutocracy that this is impossible today. Limited government requires a strong middle class. The Constitution was drafted when over 90% of Americans were self-sufficient farmers. But in the past 50 years, plutocracy has abandoned the principles of limited government, making it a tool to extract rents from the middle class. Plutocrats bribe politicians to enrich themselves through tax schemes, subsidies, and market exclusivity. Politicians in turn bribe swelling ranks of insecure voters with taxpayer-funded benefits. To end bribery and restore civic virtue and limited government, we must first restore the middle class.

Response: Operation Abigail is the most authentically conservative and republican proposal today. Its vision is conservative, because from the standpoint of middle-class primacy, it would take America back to the 1950s, without the racism and the sexism. In 1776, America’s median-top wealth ratio was below 1,000:1. Today it exceeds 2,000,000:1. We need to roll it back to 10,000:1, which is even lower than it was in the 1950s, because nothing is more essential to conservative values and civic virtue than a healthy and optimistic middle class, refreshed by productive upward mobility. Its mission is republican, because in order to have a commonwealth, the commons must have the wealth. Operation Abigail would rebuild the middle class, restore the middling virtues, and rejuvenate upward mobility.

Response: No, Operation Abigail doesn’t seek wealth redistribution. Wealth redistribution is conveyed via government agencies. Operation Abigail would instead create a market incentive to encourage market actors to voluntarily de-concentrate wealth through private transactions. It leaves the method actually used to achieve this entirely to market actors. It’s basically a scaled-up long-term incentive plan (LTIP), which every large capitalist enterprise imposes upon management. Operation Abigail uses a tax to create the incentive, but would distribute all revenues to the States, allowing them to use their shares as they see fit.

Response: No again, because far from abolishing private property, Operation Abigail seeks to multiply the number of owners of private property, and therefore protect capitalism. Allowing plutocracy to continue extracting prosperity from the middle class pushes America toward feudalism, which is as un-American and oppressive as socialism, and which will eventually produce a socialist overreaction. And as for wealth taxes, every middle-class homeowner has been paying wealth taxes on unrealized gains on their largest assets for decades. Now that our economy is no longer agrarian, there’s nothing radical in the idea that taxation should catch up. Indeed, people who pay wealth taxes are crazy to give billionaires a free pass on them.

Response: Operation Abigail does not impose a fixed wealth cap. It limits household wealth based on a mathematical ratio benchmarked against the median household net worth. Today, the median is around $150k, setting the ceiling at $1.5 billion. This ceiling is today only surpassed by about 700 households. If elites increase the median to $300k, the ceiling increases to $3 billion; if to $1 million, the ceiling increases to $10 billion. This is how capitalist organizations design incentive plans: they reward management for improving a defined target metric. Operation Abigail adopts the performance metric of the national median household net worth – the single best measure of middle-class welfare – as the measure of economic success.

Response: We agree. We pay too many taxes. That’s why Operation Abigail protects ordinary Americans from taxes: it (a) forever prohibits wealth taxes on households below the ceiling (initially 10,000x the median, about $1.5 billion); and (b) prohibits rate hikes on all federal direct taxes for 20 years. And though Operation Abigail would distribute significant revenues to the States, that’s not its real purpose. Its purpose is to encourage elite market actors to voluntarily de-concentrate prosperity so that more households are financially secure and fewer households need government support. This will in turn lower the need for revenues enough to reduce taxes – perhaps even eliminate business taxes altogether – and reduce the national debt.  

Response: If your definition of “success” is killing our middle class through greedy crony capitalism, then yes Operation Abigail punishes that. But if your definition of success is productive, innovative, prosperous capitalism nourishing a healthy middle class and upward mobility, then Operation Abigail rewards success all day long. As a long-term incentive plan (LTIP), this is its purpose. It adopts a better, pro-middle class definition of success than the old definition of winner-take-all. This old definition of success forces our elites to cater to self-interest and special interests, neglecting American workers through tax schemes, outsourcing, immigration, monopolization, and increasingly by automation. By benchmarking national economic success against the national median household net worth – as by median-top household wealth tethering – Operation Abigail punishes plutocracy for selling out American workers as it’s done for the past 50 years, rewarding elites only for improving American middle-class outcomes.

Response: No, Operation Abigail won’t apply to existing fortunes exceeding the initial 10,000x/$1.5 billion cap, provided their owners don’t try to evade it. It specifically grandfathers, or exempts, pre-existing fortunes. In order to qualify for grandfathering, existing fortunes must meet all of the following criteria: (a) they must be repatriated to the United States; (b) their holders must remove themselves from American politics, including from lobbying activities; and (c) their holders must not be convicted of certain financial and electoral crimes. Operation Abigail will only apply prospectively (going forward) to newly-created wealth to the extent that covered households comply with these rules, sanitizing our democratic processes from meddlesome plutocrats.  

Response: This may be true for the “lesser rich” but the servants of the ultra-rich have deceived millions into believing they carry their weight. The deception flows from a clever legal distinction between “income” and “capital gains,” and methods to avoid realizing both. Most ordinary household inflows are taxed as income (higher tax rates), most ultra-rich household inflows as capital gains (lower tax rates). On top of income taxes, regular wages are hit with extra payroll taxes. And on top of that, most ordinary households pay wealth taxes on their main asset: their home. Ultra-rich households meanwhile avoid wealth taxes on virtually all of their assets. They also use further minimize their taxes using schemes for which there is no useful corresponding benefit for regular people, like off-shore and other tax havens, tax-advantaged trusts, non-realization and income-avoidance tricks like collateralized loans, stepped-up basis, bogus deductions, and bogus philanthropy that hides tax breaks behind “charitable” purposes. Thus, many billionaires get away with paying virtually no taxes at all while everyone from ordinary workers to the lesser rich are left holding the bag.

Response: Operation Abigail neutralizes the risks of capital flight. Most ultra-rich people are connected to the communities which made their fortunes. Even if they wished to flee, Operation Abigail ensures they won’t be taking their fortunes with them. If the very few ultra-rich households exceeding the initial 10,000x/$1.5 billion threshold (currently around 700) tried to move money off-shore, they would merely forfeit their ability to grandfather existing fortunes. And as for assets already off-shore, failure to satisfy all grandfathering criteria as by failing to repatriate wealth similarly effectively acts as an excise tax. Tax nexus is easy to achieve, as it is the price of market access for any enterprise in which covered households hold an interest. Changing residency, renouncing citizenship, or transferring wealth to heirs will not defeat the tax.

Response: Operation Abigail will not impair innovation one iota, because it deliberately sets the ceiling high enough to preserve the monetary goals for which most ambition strives. What budding visionary-genius entrepreneur won’t get out of bed in the morning for only $1.5 billion? The $1.5 billion threshold is only surpassed by about 700 households, a substantial portion of which inherited their wealth anyway. And as for the job creation point, about 2/3 of jobs are created by small businesses whose owners live nowhere near the $1.5 billion ceiling.  Quite to the contrary, the wealth de-concentration prompted by Operation Abigail will nourish the consumer markets, which will only generate more demand for more businesses and more jobs. After all, it is impossible for entrepreneurs to sell anything for which there is no demand, and it is in turn impossible for demand to be strong where middle-class prosperity is weak.

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