The unsophisticated invocation of “science” and “balance” is also influenced by a certain economic naturalism, by which I mean an unquestioned commitment to fixed economic laws of private property rights and laissez-faire economics. One respondent, a leader of a local nonprofit who works closely with ultra-wealthy people, burst out in laughter when I asked him about recent moral critiques made by some working-class people that it is wrong for such a small selection of ultra-wealthy to own so much of the private land here. After laughing, he continued, “I’m chuckling because that to me is just utter nonsense and socialist drivel. I mean these people have paid for it.… I mean it wasn’t as though the wealthy have kicked out the lowly construction workers and those sixth-generation residents.… I mean, come on. That to me is just absurd.”