I observed the April 15th Tea Party by accident from a barbershop window. My second viewing, however, was intentional. I rode in from Gateway, met Ramona, and we walked my bike through the large and civil crowd. I was indeed pleased to be there.

Many letters have commented on the Tea Party phenomenon. I’ll provide a political economy perspective, for I think the Tea Parties are widely misunderstood, even by some participants.

First, consider the date, Independence Day. It was surely selected for its historic significance, not by sheer coincidence.

Remember the Founding Fathers led a revolt against oppressive taxes for which they had not voted. As children of the Enlightenment, they believed government should protect life, liberty, and property.

Presumably many Tea Party participants believe that our government has become an engine of plunder, one that takes from productive citizens and redistributes to undeserving others. And they are largely correct.

The logic of our democratic process has devolved into a contest between two dominant factions. One wants institutions that encourage productivity and economic growth. Consider them “supply-siders.”

These individuals want market signals, not politics, to allocate scarce resources. (Exceptions are such “public goods” as national defense and courts.) If supply-side policies are enacted, some become quite wealthy. Subsequently, many of the wealthy are considered undeserving, especially by the highly educated and coastal elites.

The supply-siders intuit the disincentives, deceits, and distortions generated by most policies that rely upon taxes and regulations to direct social outcomes.

The second group campaigns to redistribute wealth and opportunities to identified groups. They discount probable negative effects of taxes and transfers. The only censorship they support is that of market prices. Some call them “collectivists.”

Tea Party participants believe the second group is winning. Again, they are correct. They are resentful and afraid that the traditional American reward system is vanishing. Tea Parties are what anthropologists label an embryonic “revitalization movement.” They are attempts to mobilize citizens to pause, think critically, and work together to roll back policies that are converting our market economy into a society based on transfer payments.

A parsimonious explanation of the transfer strategy is quite simple. Those who prefer politics to markets seize opportunities to increase the proportion of citizens dependent upon government. “Don’t let a crisis go to waste.”

Mancur Olson explained this in The Rise and Decline of Nations. As Olson writes, small coalitions influencing policy to their favor grow in strength. Costs are widely diffusely so little public resistance emerges. However, the nation’s economy declines as it becomes more heavily burdened by economic distortions favoring special interests.

Many of the Tea Party signs and banners criticized policies supposedly designed to halt global warming. But the signs missed the major, but hidden, point of the legislation they lamented. Global warming discourse and the policy decisions it spawns are powerful for two reasons: they generate a huge constituency with financial interests, and they grant a license to proponents to impose their vision of how others should live.

In this view, we need smaller homes, mass transportation, and movement down the food chain. These anti-materialist views reject the material successes of post-WWII America.

Other banners, posters, and buttons criticized bailouts of banks “too big to fail.” Essentially, they correctly identified America’s drift toward corporatism, the linking of business and political elites. They recognize the coming of “friendly fascism,” a movement identified by “progressive” sociologist Bertram Gross of Hunter College three decades ago.

As a classical liberal, I find it easy to sympathize with the concerns of Tea Party participants. They have done us a service by calling attention to efforts transforming America. However, their fears may be overwrought.

America is a highly resilient polity. Productive people have an intuitive appreciation of what works. They know that a transfer society is a negative-sum society. As they see a diminished future in Obama’s policies, resistance builds.

The Tea Parties are merely a prologue.