Super-rich warned of ‘pitchforks and torches’ unless they tackle inequality
Global elite told at London’s Savoy hotel of real risk of ‘civil disruption’ if more is not done to help struggling millions
The super-rich respond by raising the prices on pitchforks and torches. When asked, one replies “We must always maximize profits for us shareholders!”
Personally I would prefer guillotines and pikes
She said many rich people wanted to set up their own educational or health foundations without checking whether there was a need or an existing charity or government-funded programme working to address the issue.
When the rich only think about charity as a means to further their own name, it's no wonder nothing ever really gets fixed.
The issue with revolutions is that while they tend to get rid of old elites, they create a new class of elites out of the top revolutionaries and the cycle just starts over again. Many communist revolutions were supposed to create these theoretically "equal" societies, but they just insert in a new ruling class.
Many communist revolutions were supposed to create these theoretically “equal” societies, but they just insert in a new ruling class.
You're talking about bolshevik revolution in 1917 (Chinese and the rest were bourgeoisie revolutions), but you're making this blanket statement about all revolutions. Do you know anything about the specific events that led up to the comintern's degeneration or are you parroting liberal talking points? Do you know why a new bourgeoisie arose out of the Soviet Union? Hint: it's not the tankie belief that "revisionists" got ahold of power, nor is it the liberal belief that the state bureaucracy counts as a class and that ALL revolutions lead to one class oppressing another.
Yeah but what are the other possibilities? Let them become kings?
Theoretically, by wiping out the rich would create instability within the wealthy class, they wouldn't have the time or the means to herd the politicians to serve them or to effectively disrupt democracy.
The inheritance that kid collects would amounts to "Congratulation, you won the lottery, now what? You haven't own any corporation yet, know of anything about how to make connections with other politicians and wealthy class of people and so forth. You're pretty much on your own."
Like 70% of the time, those people wouldn't even bother with politic and would just spend the money vacationing where-ever in the world and having fun with the newfound wealth, not busy trying to disrupt democracy. People tend to be very shortsighted when they amasses huge wealth, in fact, according to some statistic, it ranges from 44% to 70% of people who gain huge amount of money end up losing it all within the next 5 years.
That amount of time would basically give the common people enough time to go about fixing the political system.
Surely their huge stacks of money will protect them from the bullets, right? Right???
I would personally prefer to sentence anyone with a net worth of over $1B to a lifetime eating $100 bills until they've literally eaten their fortune. Show them the real value of their monopoly paper, you know?
I'm worried you may be underestimating how many bootlickers would be willing to defend a billionaire in some sort of collapse scenario