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Comment by sudeepj | Hacker News Reader

Was there an incident/outbreak in history which affected all (or the majority population) and the rich were substantially affected?

Take WW1 or WW2 for example. The rich/aristocratic flew away from troubled zones. In the times of famine or drought, I do not recall anyone from rich class suffered.

Why covid should be different? It is the way it always have been. Instead of thinking of rich and poor people, I have started to view them as "roles". I bet that the people who are pointing fingers at rich today would behave the same if they were to become rich. The behaviour largely remains same just the actual people keep changing.

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>>> Was there an incident/outbreak in history which affected all (or the majority population) and the rich were substantially affected?

the french revolution?

The cultural revolution as well.

The French Revolution is a pretty complicated beast. Most nobles fled France, and managed to rebuild their estates with government assistance after it was over.

What happened after the revolution was not pretty [1].

What followed made Karl Marx write the "The Class of Struggles" [2]

Excerpt from the wiki: "The industrial bourgeoisie still occupied a comparatively privileged position within society and government and this fact, Marx argues, placed them in essentially the main camp as the financial bourgeoisie"

You see the same pattern emerged.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution#Reign_of_Ter...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Class_Struggles_in_France,...

Note: I do not subscribe to the communist ideology but the fact someone notable had observed the class struggles means common people might have felt more-or-less the same as lot of poor or middle class people today.

After the revolution, the Bourbons had "learnt nothing and forgotten nothing."

We, on the other hand, were happy to move on to a new future containing the best of the revolutionary and the ancien régime, instead of blindly insisting on returning to the status quo ante. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24145281

Note: poor and middle class people today[1] are almost by definition sans-culottes[2].

[1] with the notable exception of those who wear pedal pushers! Due to stretch fabrics, even jodhs and breeches are typically full length.

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24103107

Isn't it more "Struggle of the classes"? Or "Classes struggle"? And not "The Class of Struggles" ?

You are right, my bad. It was a typo.

The Russian Revolution?

I mean, being rich or a "Kulak" was a very loose definition of rich and was used more as a political bludgeon, but the idea holds.

The siege of Paris and the Paris Commune comes to mind. The single minded revulsion that rich Europeans felt towards the commune certainly implies that something bad happened to rich Parisians during that time.

Oh, and the common phrase in the rich quarters is rumored to have been “Better Bismarck than Blanqui”, indicating that rich Parisians would rather see France lose the war than have a political foe control the city, which reinforces my suspicions.

This is a pretty empty argument. Instead of saying "you would do the same if you were rich", how about we change the system that allows them to do so? Then you can know that even if I become rich I won't do the same.

Responding to a disaster by leveraging your resources to protect your personal interests is a pretty fundamental human impulse. I doubt any system could prevent that.

Sure there are. I'm not allowed to leverage my resources to get myself out of conscription, why should a rich person be able to? As far as I know the state exists, you can just throw them in jail as soon as they step in, just like what would happen here.

As far as a billionaire holding parties during a pandemic that killed over a hundred thousand people, you threaten them with jail time. It works, if you don't have a corrupt state.

But would you also support jailing the normal people holding parties during a pandemic? Arresting people for social distancing violations is extraordinarily unpopular as far as I know, and a non-corrupt state does need to enforce laws equally.

Of course. Equality under the law is important. You can start with 24h detention not to be too harsh.

I am all for change. But my prediction is that whatever the change a new set of rich or establishment will emerge and people will detest it that as well.

The same pattern has played out in the past. This was not meant to be an argument per-se but a meta-observation.

It is not correct to say that the elite has always been able to insulate themselves from disaster. The Paris Commune, revolutionary France in general, or non-State societies dont have that issue (taking the state to mean an instrument of class conflict, which is the definition that's appropriate here).

You just need a government that wasn't captured by the rich, or any other elite. It's not impossible to attain. In fact, simply making the justice system free of charge and not allow advantages from money, the castration of the power of the executive, electoral reform to end the two-party system, income caps on representatives with complete removal of external financing, the implementation of referendums on major bills every 6 months and bolstering of direct democracy, réglementation on media to limit consolidation and financing, super-linear fine in relation to income, increased taxation of the top earners, and universal Healthcare.

It even that doesn't work, then the nuclear option is to progressively turn every corporation of over 3-10 employees into a co-op. Now you really can't have an elite anymore.

There is nothing wrong with what they are doing -- it's not a crime. A system that would pursue them for it -- that would be frighteningly unjust.

In a situation where over a hundred thousand people died, it is not reasonable to allow the super-rich to hold massive parties, no. It wouldn't be frighteningly unjust, it would be good and justified. This is how it worked where I live and we don't have secret police.

Is there a connection between "...over a hundred thousand people died..." and "...the super-rich to hold massive parties..."?

There is a connection between over a hundred thousand people dying and people holding massive parties, yes.

how about we change the system that allows them to do so?

How would you change it? Even if you taxed Travis at 90%, he'd still be a billionaire and could hold parties, maybe a little less lavish.

Or would you make private jets illegal?

We don't have this issue where I live. You can't buy tests that are accepted by the government and everyone was forbidden from having parties when we had levels of infection anywhere near the US. Punishable by jail time, not just fines, to both host and guest.

Once the virus is under control, then everyone is allowed to have parties given certain measures are fixed.

Well, the LA mayor said he was going to turn off water and power to home that continue to hold parties.[1]

[1]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53680761

The story I was taught growing up (in the UK) was that the aristocracy lost of LOT of its young men to WWI, because they were all doing time as officers in the army when it happened.

I could have been lied to.

Black Death certainly did affect the elites substantially.

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