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Comment by hughrr | Hacker News Reader

History shows us that greedy people end up with their heads on sticks. Even when they have armies to protect them. It doesn’t take a lot to regress to that again.

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I think it's excessively greedy who end up on sticks. Moderately greedy are doing just fine...

One of the main properties of many of the communist revolutions of the 20th centuries was the mass killing or removal of property of the landed gentry in those countries - sometimes more directly violent than others. Cambodia, China, Vietnam, N Korea, etc.

I think recent history has shown that simply killing the Bourgeoisie tends to just eventually create another in the form of whoever had the power to do the other killings, and not always to better ends for the people. That form of communism has been shown to not really work. Democratic socialism though seems to work out pretty well for people.

There’s still plenty of money sloshing around the coffers of European royalty, even in modern republics. If you’re good at the greed thing I think the head-on-stick risk is pretty small.

Problem is the process that brings those heads on the sticks. It often involves death & destruction of plenty other people and infrastructure.

Not to mention the countless rebellions that ended with the rebelling peoples' heads on spears. Farmer rebellions usually fail.

I dont really think history shows that. The "greedy people" can keep power for very long and it takes special circumstances for the overthrow - and overthrow usually means instability with a lot of death, torture and pain for everyone.

Yes it's not pretty

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