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The alternative of last resort is always violent revolution[1]. Wealth redistribution is the olive branch. There seems to be an open question among the wealthy
by kelseyfrog 3y ago
The alternative of last resort is always violent revolution[1]. Wealth redistribution is the olive branch.
There seems to be an open question among the wealthy and political class of how far inequality can go given the modern police state and effectiveness of technology in accomplishing the goal of maintaining or exacerbating the current political economy.
1. See historical populist grivences against aristocracy that result in social restructuring.
- sidewndr46 3y agoOverwhelmingly, violent revolution doesn't actually bring about the goals of the revolution. It just installs a new power structure with variations on all the old problems. Sometimes much worse. So it isn't really a "last resort". It's more of a "well you didn't compromise, so now our choice is to burn the whole system down"
- kelseyfrog 3y agoWholeheartedly agree. For the peasants, revolutionary goals are rarely fulfilled. For the previous elite though, they rarely find continuity of power post revolution. The sans-culottes didn't quite accomplish their goals(at least immediately), but Louis XVI among other elites didn't survive. Toussaint Louverture et al didn't accomplish their goals, but the French no longer controlled Haiti. Even Lenin and Trosky didn't accomplish their goals, but the Romanov didn't leave the Ipatiev House alive. Like many conflicts, one side doesn't have to win for one to lose.
- EarthAmbassador 3y agoAll true, which brings up the question how much better will the world be with a new elite. Also, maybe today’s generation of revolutionaries will do something different.
- lostlogin 3y ago> Overwhelmingly, violent revolution doesn't actually bring about the goals of the revolution. It just installs a new power structure with variations on all the old problems. Sometimes much worse. There are examples either way, and sadly you seem right. I recently read but now can’t find a discussion around this that argued that extreme times promote extreme individuals. A violent revolution is clearly an extreme time and any leader that emerges is likely to have fought hard for their position.
- ambientenv 3y agoThis feels true to me. So my question is - and I don't know the answer yet, though I continue to seek such - when do we, as a humanity, break this cycle? When, and how, do we override the greed impulse, the impulse for power and control and domination of others? When do we begin to leverage a superior cognitive capacity enough to gain true enlightenment and break free from the bonds of behaviour which, while necessary as we evolved, is no longer required, and replace it with an egalitarian perspective and an accompanying stewardship model of life on earth?
- zozbot234 3y agoWe are pretty much there already. The average person in a developed Western country is pretty much a billionaire when compared to the living conditions of even the wealthiest people in ancient history. It's only the impulse of greed and envy towards others that leads us to believe otherwise.
- kelseyfrog 3y agoI'm always reminded of the video where one monkey is rewarded with a cucumber and one with a grape[1]. Certainly getting a cucumber is infinitely better than not having a cucumber, and yet the monkey protests. Despite having higher cognitive functions, that impulse still exists and can only be suppressed for so long and so far. No one has infinite capacity to maintain what they see as unfairness indefinitely, especially when it seems that humans make their own rules. 1. Capuchin monkey fairness experiment, total duration: 57s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo
- somewhereoutth 3y agoNot quite. Some things are fundamentally restricted in supply - for example and most pertinently, decent housing where people need to live. It is hard to feel like a billionaire when you have to share cramped living spaces that take most of your income.
- blacksmith_tb 3y agoTraditional responses see that as either good (which I think is your implication) or terrible, a la "bread and circuses" where people are too complacent to demand any real changes. I would say that the "average person" is a tricky model, here in the US there are people sleeping on the sidewalk, but they have smartphones in their pockets. Are they better off than a Roman emperor? I would say no.
- beaeglebeach 3y agoGood luck with that in USA. I'd rather die some billionaires minimum wage security squad protecting his gold plated yacht than let some violent freeloaders take my shit and install some cuban-tier communist hell-hole where there's no incentive to produce even basic grain stocks.
- wewtyflakes 3y agoIf you are minimum wage security guard, nobody is taking your shit.
- dgfitz 3y agoWhat incentive would this guard have to keep working?
- wewtyflakes 3y agoSo are you arguing we _should_ make rich people poor so they have motivation to work; that only poor people can be motivated to work?
- beaeglebeach 3y ago[flagged]
- wewtyflakes 3y agoBetter to be robbed by the rich than by the poor? If you're convinced the world is out to get you, what difference does it make?
- beaeglebeach 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rjsw 3y agoThere is an argument that Karl Marx provided a guide for the aristocracy to work out the point that inequality would provoke a revolution then back off slightly from it.
- kelseyfrog 3y agoLike yes, but also no? The aristocracy no easier to organize than the peasantry. They, through individual self-interest, graze on the commons of wealth and power and are subject to its tragedies just the same.