Rage of the Falling Elite: How downward mobility fuels radical politics | Hacker News Reader

Rage of the Falling Elite: How downward mobility fuels radical politics

robkhenderson.com

13 pointsvinnyglennon8 comments

> These were not people starving; they were aggrieved that they were in the 90th percentile rather than the 99th. Surveys show progressive activists are wealthier, whiter, and more highly educated than the average American. They are nearly three times as likely to hold a postgraduate degree.

> Many assume the central conflict in society is between the haves and the have-nots. In reality, much of the struggle is between the haves and the have-mores—people who are already doing well but want the money, resources, and status of those above them. They often disguise this ambition as concern for the have-nots.

> The affluent were the most likely to agree with statements like “I want a position of prestige.” Elsewhere, a University of Edinburgh study found that malicious envy—resentment at others’ success—was one of the strongest predictors of support for coercive redistribution. The impulse, in other words, is not to lift up the poor but to tear down those who are one rung higher.

> This helps to explain why modern movements like Occupy Wall Street were filled not with the destitute but with college-educated professionals. These were not people starving; they were aggrieved that they were in the 90th percentile rather than the 99th

People who are starving must work. The elite class wants to keep your healthcare tied to employment for a reason - to keep you from speaking up for yourself because you are scared.

It is absolutely reasonable for people who have means to assist those who do not. In fact, one could argue that those with means should speak up for those who do not as a moral imperative.

That people of means could assist those who do not, does not at all imply that people of means who say they are assisting are actually assisting. The road to hell and involuntary collectivism is paved with good intentions.

The highway to hell is paved with selfishness and avarice and we are clearly on it; if we keep doing this "tragedy of the commons" bit and don't prioritize the well being of the species we are going to destroy what remains of the climate that sustains us. The idea that our current predicament is that disaffected elites are just looking to elevate themselves doesn't square with the climate reality; plenty of people want a more equitable distribution of resources because we're out of runway for naked capitalism.

The aversion to authoritarianism of any flavor is well grounded and we cannot cross that line, so your point on forced collectivism is valid. But when the current system is trying to burn 300 million years of fossil fuels in a cool 300 years without having a ramp towards a sustainable future during a period of wealth inequality greater than the gilded age, _something's going to give_. It's either going to be our economic system, our mechanism for ordering society, or 3C+ of warming.

There is nothing about collectivism, socialism or communism that guarantees they would be any better stewards of our environment than the status quo. Again, there’s a track record and it’s not good.

There are many ways our economic system is entirely compatible with stopping global warming, but it would require putting prices on things people consider sacrosanct like unlimited driving and unlimited municipally treated water for lawns. Wake me when the socialists are willing to talk how they will equitably tell citizens that they can’t do environmentally destructive things when the citizens are telling them that they want to do those environmentally destructive things. I’m not saying there’s an easy answer, in fact, I’m convinced that there isn’t. He had every day we are told that if only we have a revolution, suddenly these hard problems just disappear, and I don’t think that’s true. After the revolution, people will still be selfish. Perhaps the selfishness won’t be measured in dollars, but it will still exist.

It's very noticeable among the progressive left who post on HN, highly paid software developers attempting to LARP as the oppressed poor. Don't they realize they're still wealthy enough that they'd still go the chopping block if a people's revolution came?

Cliodynamics anyone?

Doesn't this article just bash you over the head over and over - socialism is bad and getting ahead good and anyone who might seem on the side of evil socialism are failures and woke. I GET IT ALREADY. This could have been one paragraph.

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