Below is a screenshot of California’s major rent-seekers ranked in descending order of dollars they currently capture from state spending:
The dollars add up to nearly $200 billion* that is appropriated every year by the governor and legislature in favor of rent-seekers. Some also benefit from statutes enacted by the legislature and governor.
Now you know why the rent-seeking community descended on San Francisco this weekend for the CA Democratic convention. They cannot afford to allow anyone else pick the state’s political leadership.
But notice also how little of the state’s population the rent-seekers represent: Less than 10 percent of the state’s population and just 20 percent of the state’s workers. But they control 100 percent of the state’s political power. That’s why they are California’s Oligarchy.
Yesterday this is how the Oligarchy voted for governor:
Who will the Oligarchy crown this year?
*The data in the second and third columns are from Gemini 3 Pro. I expect the numbers are not perfectly precise but they are of the scale I expect. Where a range was given I took the average.
