Elite reveal anxiety over ‘class war’ and ‘revolution’

I'm not advocating it as a solution for society, I'm just surprised that people would buy bunkers to help them survive the violence that they think inequality will cause, and not also think about taking steps to reduce the inequality by raising the living standards of those at the bottom. Both courses of action can be justified even at a self-interested level.

There are lots of situations where groups have voluntarily agreed to abide by a code of practice in order to avoid having one forced on them by democratic government (or a mob). The concept is common enough that the Canadian government describe it here [1] It absolutely can work, as long as the voluntary code goes far enough and is adhered to by enough of the relevant industry.

[1] https://ic.gc.ca/eic/site/oca-bc.nsf/eng/ca00963.html

Side Note: thats how I woke up in time for work this morning! No alarm clock, just... "What time is it?"

In order to have a culture absent regulation, we need to build a culture which has some measure of restraint, mutual aid, and mutual understanding. Capitalist economies only manage to do that when the group you wish to understand also has the money to be consumers.

On the flip side, like I told more than a few panhandlers when I was homeless: nobody is really going to help us when they think they're better than us. They can try to be charitable, but they wont ever seriously help as much as a comrade who found a piece to share.

Short of everyone UBI coming in and somehow magically not spiking rent, or creating the rent-control death spiral? Hey, those Socialists among Venezuelans are all just illiterate savages. Nevermind their near 100% literacy rate... Give people an excuse to distance themselves from an outsider, and most take it. It doesnt have to be honest, moral, or even helpful - people will swallow that lie.

It is all so much more complicated than that.

http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what...

But once you impose a fine for something? You've turned it into a commodity. You'll have to work harder than simply removing the fine to reverse that commodification.

But thats the problem with market expansion - it took a Civil War, and an Emancipation to rid the US of an entire market. Property owners were livid enough to see it coming. They called for "States Rights" to regulate, rather than ban this property. In 1865, a whole lot of property-owners were just plain mad - that Socialist Government took their property from them!

Its just property, not capable of independence, according to then-contemporary thought. Best to keep it, and those poor whites in line by turning them against each other. (Yes, that was a conscious decision. Read "A People's History of the United States".)

Speaking of poor whites... They didnt get to vote for Washington. We had to keep the ignorant out of high affairs like politics. Nevermind that a properly fancy party could sway an election among some of the Southern Plantation owners' states. Sometimes, politicians would find a small enough pool of voters to simply bribe enough of them (and yes, this was before the political machines).

It was only through hard work that any honest workers got to cast their own vote. Much less any incremental increase since then. And we're not done. The market continues.

Ridding the stock market of derivatives, (the sugar-high that has in 20 years ballooned to eclipse the entire world's non-derivative M3 money supply several times over) took the freaking Great Depression, and the potential rise of actual Socialism. Stock-brokers went from being well-paid, prestigious millionaires (when that meant something) to being middling-wage hucksters in the public eye.

Where was the concern for those Stockbrokers' property, intangible though it may be? Glass-Stegal stripped it! And the nation flourished for it.

When you let anyone think they're above someone else? They'll begin to neglect that humanity. They suffer for it, and so do we.

Look at what Trump's isolation-via-wealth has done to him - we find a man terrified of not being liked. He has to be the best... In terms that made him popular among his friends, when he was in his 20s-30s, and he is still chasing that. Even after it isnt culurally relevant the same way among the "commoners", he was handed a way for it to work again through TV. And thats gone. He might not even get to experience Love the same as the rest of us do.

Next, look at those cheering masses he has at rallies. Its no wonder he loves those events more than governing. Look at how they cheer when he spouts hateful, ignorant lies. Is it any wonder he works so hard to make them true? To show himself as an honest man in the end?

Here's these people showering him with adoration, when each one (absent the hat) would appear to him as insignificant as a beggar to most of us. Thats gonna do some weird things psychologically. Its as if the Nation itself were rising up to embrace him in LOVE LOVE LOVE.

You know what? Trump, if you read this, give Bolton his Benzos, and lets chat. Everyone deserves that acceptance you get at rallies, even Venezuelans. Even a car-dwelling madman like me. Even you. Even Vladimir. Lets talk about a way that you can really be the hero we need, and that'll shut Pelosi up, even have AOC singing your praises.