Perhaps they should build a wall

A reader writes:

It strikes me as something of a turning point in a nation’s history when its leaders feel they have to begin devising ways to prevent people from leaving.

It appears the temporary alliance between our economic and political ruling classes may be starting to break down. Our economic masters, once they are done looting the economy and lecturing us from the collected works of Ayn Rand, give little indication that they feel normal things like “love of country” or “debt of gratitude to the nation that made them rich”. In a world neatly divided between Makers and Takers and founded on the conviction that charity is a sin, bailing on America in her hour of trial is good Randian business. So guys like Saverin can just fly away and leave us holding the bag if the nation looks like it’s going to tank. Their loyal servants in the political class don’t like this, of course, since they don’t like being left holding the bag either. Hence things like the link above, trying to stave off the exodus. Failing states are perpetually in a struggle to forbid people from fleeing them. When they get bad enough, they have to forbid the poor as well as the rich from fleeing.