JOEL KOTKIN: IPOs, the Opium of California.

The current frenzy of new IPOs — Uber, Lyft, Slack, Postmates, Pinterest and Airbnb — seems destined to reinforce progressive notions that California represents the future not just for the state, but the nation. It will certainly reinforce California’s fiscal dependency on tech-dominated elites — half of the state’s income taxes come from people making over $500,000 a year — and provide a huge potential multi-billion dollar windfall for the state treasury.

To be sure, the insiders — founders, with nearly half the voting shares in companies such as Lyft, a small “tech mafia” of venture firms, foreign investors such as Japan’s Softbank and Wall Street investors — will have reason to celebrate. But the lavish paydays will do little to relieve, and may even serve to worsen, the state’s gaping inequality and nation-leading poverty rates.

Most damaging of all, the IPO high will encourage supporters of the state’s policy agenda. If new companies crop up, and the handful of politically savvy investors thrive, California’s illuminati can fend off criticism of policies that undermine the middle and working class in everything from energy to housing.

Sort of like the effect of oil in badly run Third World countries.