It surprises me that the monied elite seem to have so little awareness of what happens when they keep winning.
Edit: before someone throws very strong platitudes at me again, I would like to see real-world examples. Because at least in my lifetime there have been zero consequences for people in power.
Edit 2: I've been banned from replying to this thread (lol, talk about power of the state). I guess I didn't define my acceptance criteria properly. But I thought it would be clear that the goal should be uplifting everyone not just shift the money around to someone else. That is what most of the revolutions mentioned in the replies are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu#Death
EDIT: One could argue whether the United Healthcare CEO assassination meets the criteria, too.
So, even if you weren't factually incorrect as well as smug, what's your actual point?
So sure, not a given, but it’s a risk that goes up as conditions get worse.
> It surprises me that the monied elite seem to have so little awareness of what happens when they keep winning.
What happened is that the Russian elite ended up dead or penniless in exile. What happened after that is not really relevant to the lot of the blind elite of the ancien régime.
It's like a century of struggle before that whole situation resolved.
This is unsubstantiated by historical evidence. No new class of "hereditary bureaucrats" emerged to replace the nobility; there was remarkably high movement between workers and officials, and even up to the very end of the Soviet Union, high officials were former day workers who had worked their way up the ranks.
It’s easy to forget after 80 years of stable western democracies, but brutal equilibrium shifts do happen. There was a revolution every ~20 years in Europe between 1789 and 1917. And even during the 20th century, the history of much of the world is full of coups, revolts, and uprisings. See all the revolutions in ex-soviet republics, the Arab spring, etc.
So you can pick and choose between the American independence, the French Revolution, the revolutions of 1848, the Commune, and the soviets, to give you just a couple of examples for which you can find some documentation easily.
Again, am not a Trump supporter in anyway, but agree that when the wealthy keep getting richer while the blue-collar worker continues to struggle, this leads to discontentment and pushback.
Definitely. He tapped the anger and resentment of an underclass. The shame is that this underclass does not really see how he is harming them and how his politics benefit their old ennemies, the economic elite that’s turning into oligarchs.
> Most of the examples you gave of revolutions led to greater democracy and greater socialism, which benefits the blue collar, but ironically, in this case, the blue collar elected a autocratic conservative.
True. But examples of this also abound pre- or during WWII, from all the fascist regimes in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and copycats such as Vichy.
Upheaval and chaos can lead to either progress or ruin.
I'd bet you that at least some are aware and just don't care. You crap on people long enough and they'll want to burn it all down out of spite. I suspect the eventual endgame here might be class warfare. Keep an eye out for more of these oligarch bunkers that are popping up.
People in power only have power in so far as others believe and enforce it. The emperor has no clothes.
Liberia (1980 coup & 1989–2003 wars): Americo-Liberian elite overthrown by indigenous-led coups; cyclical elite purges, executions, and exiles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Liberian_coup_d%27état
Argentine Military Junta (1983): generals faced prosecution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_the_Juntas
Philippines – Marcos Family (1986): Ousted by "People Power"; Ferdinand Marcos fled, family assets frozen, political exile: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/06/17/Judge-orders-Marcos-...
Romania – Ceaușescu Regime (1989): Ceaușescu and wife executed after rapid regime collapse; party elite purged: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and_execution_of_Nicolae...
Rwanda (1994): Hutu elite responsible for genocide overthrown by Tutsi-led RPF, the attempt to seek justice overwhelmed their legal system so hard that it was itself criticised by Amnesty International: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide#Aftermath; internationally, there were also trials and convictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribuna...
Iraq (2003)/Libya (2011): External forces happened, Saddam Hussein got hanged, Muammar Gaddafi's death was the kind of thing people make laws to stop soldiers from doing.
And this year, that health insurance CEO who got assassinated, didn't they get their own legal strategy carved onto the bullets or something like that?
To reach the level of billionaire, it’s pretty much a requirement that you abandon all empathy and ethics.
What’s surprising is that nobody in their circle has educated them on the concept of a win-win. These people could be folk heros, universally loved and respected in ways buying a social media platform and banning all the haters will never accomplish.
They are also a honeypot begging to be exploited by bad actors for whom life is a zero-sum game. Once a critical mass of those asshats show up, all of the trust that led to the greater efficiency and productivity breaks down.
Greater trust between good actors is efficient but opens the door to free riders. Lower trust is inefficient but handles bad actors. I think basically all of human history is a meandering line around this unstable equilibrium of trust.
1. The universe simply does not permit an arrangement of humans that isn't a hierarchy of exploitation and suffering.
2. There is a "natural" hierarchy which is also a just one, where good people deserve to exploit and bad people deserve to suffer, and of course I'm not one of the bad people. ("Just-world fallacy.")
3. Anyone who says don't need to build a Torment Nexus for anyone is a sneaky liar trying to trick their way upwards into a layer in the hierarchy they don't "deserve."
So it's not as simple as sadism or greed, they'll tolerate some being stepped-on as long as they've been convinced that the "right people" doing the stepping and the bad people are getting stepped on more.
A relevant free ebook from 2006: https://theauthoritarians.org
That's just one example. There are plenty of rich people who got there fairly and created a lot of value along the way.
How is Roger Federer exploiting others? He played a competitive game, won a lot of tournaments, accepted a lot of sponsorship money. He is now a billionaire. Did he need to give up ethics and morals to get there? What kind of blame is that really?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._J._Hyett
Probably more the exception than the rule.
Nobody knows when.
But it's useful to think about how.
I think the inability for people to control themselves, while probably our greatest weakness, is also what often saves us. The greed goes too far and then there's a massive backlash (revolution).
Technology is trying to neuter any potential backlash though. I mean who can be bothered with a revolution while there's youtubes to watch and AIs doing everything for you! I'm still optimistic we'll smarten up eventually.
I suspect that’s why I’ve seen more serious monarchists than I ever have before.