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from the picthfork-futures-accelerate-to-new-highs dept.
Nick Hanauer, a self-described "plutocrat" says history shows that the current economic and governmental situation can't last, and the USA should should get busy changing before the system breaks down.
From the memo to his "Fellow Zillionaires":
I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I'm no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can't even imagine.
But let's speak frankly to each other. I'm not the smartest guy you've ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I'm not technical at all - I can't write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future.
If we don't do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn't eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It's not if, it's when.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday July 03 2014, @07:20AM
I'm serious. Please show me one time, so I can hope that there will be a second and we can avoid a lot of lives lost and major damage to society. Because we have a global society today, and the coming Revolution will be global as well.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday July 03 2014, @07:35AM
So the system will continue to redistribute resource balance until some core function fails. Questions is then which one? when? and the outfall?
Has any cracks showed up so far that could actually halt the day-to-day essentials?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @09:03PM
those who have money and/or power will never, and I mean NEVER, willingly and of their own free choice give them up
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." --Frederick Douglass (1857)
[Have] any cracks showed up so far that could actually halt the day-to-day essentials?
In "the richest nation in the world", every day, 17 million children go to bed hungry. [sodexofoundation.org]
There are people who have to make a choice between e.g. buying food or buying medicine.
Does that answer the ignorant question you got from Fox so-called News?
You need to switch off your TeeVee, get out of your gated community, and experience the real world.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Funny) by EvilJim on Thursday July 03 2014, @08:43AM
Alistair Crowley gave up his fortune for drugs, sex and satanic rituals, does that count? }:)
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday July 03 2014, @07:19PM
If you think Crowley engaged in satanic rituals, you don't understand either Crowley or satanism. Anton LeVey(sp?) was closer to being a satanist, but I actually think he was just a con-man. Some of his disciples, however, WERE satanists.
Yeah, I know that's off the main point. And I sort of agree with you. There are individuals who from an ecstatic belief (or just fanaticism...it may not always be ecstatic) will do unusual things, even to the point of impoverishing themselves...or worse. People have willingly put themselves into the hands of torturers in the expectation that it would eventually kill them.
The real thing is, however, that that kind of government is usually only overthrown by a coup. The Menshevik revolution was an extreme exception...and you'll notice that they were quickly overthrown by the Bolsheviks. Usually what happens is that the government is so weakened by internal strife among the upper classes that someone outside steps in and takes over.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:23PM
quite possibly, my info only comes from a couple of youtube docos so really not sure how reliable they are. also I only have a passing interest in Crowley, not something I'm deeply studied in :)
(Score: 1) by NickM on Friday July 04 2014, @12:58AM
He was not a satanist he was a nietzschean uberman actualizing his will to power in a dramatic way.
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 2, Informative) by CRCulver on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:29AM
While you may be right that no entire class of rich, powerful people willingly gave up their money and power, history has plenty of examples as individuals doing so. In medieval and early modern Europe and Asia where there was a strong Christian or Buddhist monastic tradition, a number of rulers abdicated and retired to a monastery in old age. Some were forced to do so by intrigue, but there are a number of examples of rulers just worn out by years on the throne. Even Siddharta Gautama, the historical Buddha, was a member of the societal elites who became a total renunciant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @02:01PM
you don't deserve to know.
maybe you should have paid more attention in philosophy class? or did you just climb the ladder and then throw it away?
(Score: 1) by Stuntbutt on Thursday July 03 2014, @03:02PM
George Washington.
He abdicated power over the colonial army, despite the very real, very easy possibility of taking over.
That's American History - I am *sure* there are other examples in other places.
Counter-example provided, the sentiment expressed is valid - people generally don't give up money and/or power. I wouldn't say NEVER, but it is not the norm. :(
(Score: 2) by Rune of Doom on Thursday July 03 2014, @07:42PM
Emperor Diocletian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian [wikipedia.org]
(Not that the end result was particularly better for anyone, but he went from 'Emperor of the Known World' to 'rural aristocrat growing cabbages')