| > Man... How did yall white Westerners turn out to be the weakest people in the world? You were supposed to be the bastions of freedom and justice This is a misunderstanding of American history. From its founding by wealthy white male landowners and slaveowners, the US was by design a plutocracy, enshrined in the Constitution with various anti-democratic (small "d") measures such as separation of powers, the electoral college, the Presidential veto, the unelected Supreme Court with lifetime tenure, and representation of land rather than population in the Senate. Originally, Senators weren't even directly elected. And of course neither women nor Black men had the right to vote. (EDIT: I forgot to mention the extreme difficulty of amending the Constitution, and as a result, the Constitution hasn't been amended much since the Bill of Rights.) The only thing that held the plutocracy in check was "all political is local". The US was an agrarian nation, not yet hit by the industrial revolution. The fastest form of communication and tranportation was the horse. What has changed radically in the 20th and 21st centuries is that modern technology allows the ultra-wealthy to organize and conspire (see Epstein and friends, for example) on a national and even international scale. Political election campaigns have always been privately funded—another essential feature of the plutocracy—and now they're obscenely expensive with TV and internet advertising, which further consolidates the power of the ultra-wealthy campaign contributors. The biggest problem with the US is that we haven't had a political revolution in 250 years. We're still operating under the ancient rules. Even during the suffering of the Great Depression, it took a "white knight", an ultra-wealthy leader FDR with some sympathy for the lower classes, to provide some relief. And note that the most successful third-party Presidential candidate in recent history was Ross Perot, a billionaire who self-funded TV informercials to spread his message. The game is rigged in favor of big money and has always been so rigged. |
| > with various anti-democratic (small "d") Yes, because the designers of the system were well-read and understood that raw democracy, like oligarchy and autocracy, is something that republics devolve into. Rule by the many is great, but the historical evidence shows it's clearly unstable. The Constitution is designed to maximize the advantages while hedging against its inherent instability. > The game is rigged in favor of big money and has always been so rigged. I would say the game is rigged in favor of production, of which capital is a big part, because those who don't produce end up being governed by those who do. |
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| ▲ | lapcat 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Yes, because the designers of the system were well-read Well-read in the 18th century. And they borrowed heavily from 17th century philosopher John Locke. Imagine relying on 17th or 18th century medicine now. The founders weren't nearly as wise as they're alleged to be. For example, they thought their system would suppress political parties, and then political parties arose almost immediately. > Rule by the many is great, but the historical evidence shows it's clearly unstable. Which historical evidence are you referring to? Most of history is nondemocratic. In any case, the US broke out into an extremely bloody civil war less than 75 years after the Constitution was ratified, so it hasn't been "stable", not that stability is even desirable under a plutocracy. > I would say the game is rigged in favor of production, of which capital is a big part, because those who don't produce end up being governed by those who do. Let's see a rich dude produce anything all by himself. We like the pretend that the one rich dude is producing everything and his thousands of employees are basically superfluous. | | |
| ▲ | mullingitover 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Let's see a rich dude produce anything all by himself. We like the pretend that the one rich dude is producing everything and his thousands of employees are basically superfluous. We're certainly in agreement here, but I would say that most modern wealth is fictional: based on equity, which is based on credit, which is based on confidence, which at the end of the day is just vibes. So most of the 'wealthy' people exist as such with social permission because they're employed in production, and if they fail at that job the wealth rapidly evaporates. However, they're definitely wildly overpaid in the US. That, imho, is because culturally this country still wants to cosplay at having an aristocracy. | | |
| ▲ | lapcat 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > So most of the 'wealthy' people exist as such with social permission because they're employed in production, and if they fail at that job the wealth rapidly evaporates. It's misleading to say "they're employed in production", using the present tense. Many were engaged in production, and some choose to remain engaged, but others don't. It doesn't seem to matter much. Bill Gates quit his job 20 years ago, claims to be trying to give most of his money away, yet he's still one of the wealthiest people in the world. The dude was already ultra-wealthy by age 30. Sure, he engaged in production for a number of years, but most ordinary workers have no choice but to engage in production for 40 or 50 years or their life at least. The ultra-wealthy are not wage earners, paid by their labor. They are capital owners, and capital continues to earn returns regardless. If you're smart with your wealth and diversify, and by smart I mean not dumb—safe long-term investment doesn't take a genius—it's extremely hard to lose it all. That would happen only if you put all of your eggs in one basket. I'm not aware of too many riches to rags stories, except among professional athletes for example. But those athletes were wage earners rather than capital owners. They don't own the sports teams. | | |
| ▲ | peyton 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | A lot of complaints about the way the world works—what alternative do you propose? | | |
| ▲ | lapcat 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > what alternative do you propose? Your question is ambigious. Are you asking what a different system would look like, or how we would get there? As for the first question, there are many obvious ways to improve the system. Here are some suggestions: abolish the electoral college, abolish the Presidential veto and pardon, abolish the Senate, abolish lifetime Supreme Court terms, add term limits for Congress, publicly fund political campaigns and outlaw campaign contributions as illegal bribery, allow public recall campaigns against the President, Congress, and Supreme Court, etc. As for the second question: "The biggest problem with the US is that we haven't had a political revolution in 250 years." |
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