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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:07PM
Your sense of invincibility is, how shall we say, naive? Reality check: when the pitchforks and guillotines come out they will, most likely, be used on other 99-percenters. Do you really think that the one-percenters are going to stick around for this blood bath? Hell, NO!!! They already have off-shore bank accounts that they have stuffed with money as their insurance policy. They will merely hop into their private jets and take off for some place which is "more politically stable". (You do realize that this is one of the major reasons for having an off-shore bank account, right?) Meanwhile, those of us with 401(k) retirement plans will most likely end up branded as "traitors to the people" or "collaborators" and pay the penalty for our sins, accordingly. So, just remember, Madame Defarge, don't be so eager to cheer on the revolution because you may end up as just another bit of collateral damage in the process. 'Nuff said?