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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: 1) by gidds on Thursday July 03 2014, @03:12PM
While it's refreshing and even cheering to see someone in his position speaking in such a (relatively) humble way, I think he still misses one important point:
I don't know his details, but I suspect that to a large degree, what sets him apart is less his judgement and intuition, and more sheer blind luck.
It's a common human failing to overattribute misfortune to chance, and good fortune to talent. Of course, it's often hard to recognise just how much a part chance plays, but some lucky breaks and happy coincidences must have factored in his success.
This is important, because if the main reason is luck, then he is fundamentally no different from us. He may have been better able to capitalise (ha!) on his circumstances, but how many others would have done so were they in his position?
And if we're all fundamentally alike, then wealthy people's success wasn't achieved entirely through their own merits; and unsuccessful people's failure wasn't entirely due to their own bad decisions or judgement. Not everything we get is deserved. In material terms and in the short term, at least, this life isn't fundamentally fair. (This isn't an atheist or nihilist position; one of the oldest books of the Bible, Job, takes a lot of effort to address this.)
In short: the wealthy cannot look down on the poor and assume that either position is deserved.
They can't claim that merit or talent or skill or breeding or anything else entitles them to their position. It does not set them apart. It does not excuse them from concern about others.
Perhaps some people might view their wealth differently without that psychological crutch?
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