No war but class war.

Not sure how long it will take for a critical mass to realize that that we are in a class war, and placing the blame on anything else won't solve the problem.

IOW, I agree with you, I also think we are beyond the point where electoral politics can solve it - we have full regulatory capture by the wealthy now. When governments can force striking workers back to work, workers have zero power.

What I wonder though, is why do the wealthy allow this to persist? What's the end game here, when no one can afford to live, whose buying products and services? There'll be nothing to keep the economy going. The wealthy can end it at any time, so what is the real goal? To be the only ones left on earth?

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usefulcat 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

You write as though "the wealthy" are a unified group acting in concert. They're not; they're just like everyone else in that regard, acting in their own, mostly short to medium term best interest. Seems like a pretty ordinary tragedy of the commons type of situation.

	▲	jmyeet 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Oh I strongly disagree. If there's one thing the wealthy have is an intense class solidarity. They're fully aware of the power of class solidarity. You might see conflicts on the fringes but when the shit hits the fan, they will absolutely stick together. They're so aware of the power of class solidarity that they've designed society to ensure that there is no class solidarity among the working class. All of the hot button social issues are intentionally divisive to avoid class solidarity.

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jmyeet 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It's greed and short-term thinking, We shouldn't be surprised by this because we see companies do it all the time. How many times have you thought an employer or some company in the news is operating on a time horizon no further than the next quarterly results?

To be ultra-wealthy requires you to be a sociopath, to believe the bullshit that you deserve to be wealthy, it's because of how good you are and, more importantly, that any poverty is a personal moral failure.

You see this manifest with the popularity of transhumanism in tech circles. And transhumanism is nothing more than eugenics. Extend this further and you believe that future war and revolution when many people die is actually good because it'll separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

On top of all that, in a world of mobile capital, the ultra-wealthy ultimately believe they can escape the consequences of all this. Switzerland, a Pacific island, space, or, you know, Mars.

The neofeudalistic future the ultra-wealthy desire will be one where they are protected from the consequences of their actions on massive private estate where a handful of people service their needs. Working people will own nothing and live in worker housing. If a few billion of them have to die, so be it.