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I have a theory. Giant productive societies will be ruled by billionaires. If the society tries to choose otherwise -- whoever else they choose as leaders will
by gojomo 14y ago
I have a theory.
Giant productive societies will be ruled by billionaires. If the society tries to choose otherwise -- whoever else they choose as leaders will become billionaires.
I'm not sure the theory is true, but we may want to prepare mechanisms that still work for checking leaders' power, and attaining an acceptable level of competent and just governance, if it does turn out to be true. I suspect that will require more transparency than China practices.
- sachingulaya 14y agoThelastpsychiatrist.com expoused on this model in his perceptive piece about Paul Ryan enjoying Rage against the Machine. http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/08/paul_ryan_vs_rage_against_the.html http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/08/paul_ryan_vs_rage_aga... Is there a name for this idea?
- erichocean 14y agoThanks for the link, definitely an interesting read.
- ableal 14y agoYou pushed me to read it ;-) "When everything is recorded, nothing is remembered.", the final line, reminded me of Mary Renault writing about the transition from oral (memorized) to written poetry in pre-classical Greece.
- arrrg 14y agoAngela Merkel isn't exactly rich (certainly no billionaire) and neither are many other European leaders. Even US presidents don't necessarily turn into billionaires.
- isleyaardvark 14y agoCongresspeople, too. I'm sure they're extremely comfortable, and you'd find some of the ultra-rich in Congress, but I get the feeling they make less money than you'd expect for someone with a direct influence on a budget of several trillion dollars.
- gojomo 14y agoI included enough qualifiers to prevent such simple falsification-by-trivial-example! Perhaps Germany isn't 'giant' enough. (It only has 80M people compared to China 1.3B, India 1.2B, USA 300M, Russia 141M.) Or maybe its real behind-the-scenes rulers are still billionaires (despite the particular figurehead officeholders). Or maybe the time required for the 'will be'/'will become' prediction hasn't passed yet. I realize this is a 'no-true-scotsman' dodge. It wasn't meant to be a rigorous theory, just a thought-provoker. In 'giant productive societies' those people/movements best at marshaling large numbers of workers/machinery/voters will have both political power, and billionaire-like financial assets. The same competencies can acquire both... and power and wealth can be converted both ways (via both corrupt and non-corrupt processes).