"The role of the ultra-wealthy has morphed from one of shared social responsibility and patronage to the freewheeling celebration of selfish opulence," @brianklaas.bsky.social writes:
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Is the Atlantic for real? They never share social responsibility and patronage. It's always to serve their egos. Take Bill Gates, he simply gave money to himself. The rich never give up anything without the many wrenching it from their parasitic paws.
Feeding into this is the nonsense "luxury" sold by the worst of the worst marketing teams. "Everyone deserves luxury" is grooming the public for seeing megamillionaires as normal and deserving. Thanks for reporting, The Atlantic.
There's a constant assumption that things will remain the same or steadily improve. Even as Musk changes everything, he will assume his changes will remain.
But people and systems react to change, sometimes violently. If he thinks an ever-richer oligarchy is the next steady state, he is dreaming.
If only we knew enough about history to see this inevitable arc coming. Looking back at Rome or the Chinese Dynasties I see nothing but altruistic aristocrats until one day everyone just decides to do a new civilization for some unknown reason. We really should have put some laws into place.
Mmmm - "The illusion that the role of the ultra-wealthy is one of shared social responsibility and patronage has shattered to reveal their entire obsession with selfish opulence that they used to have to hide because they were afraid of public opinion."
And it is precisely the limit, the balance between the default (too little) and the excess, which is targeted in the desire to deregulate the markets, or to no longer be bothered by the gaze, the existence of others.
Our relationship with wealth is not exclusively individual; it is largely socially constructed. Some societies have educated their population to despise wealth to the point of harming its development, while others worship those who have become considerably richer.
There used to be this wondrous force of will. It made people strive to be the best at playing their chosen instrument, instruments, to sing, so that when the time came they could bring all kinds of people together. Corporations, awards, publicity, these were alien concepts. You just had to be there.
The ultra-wealthy were brought to heel by labor action and anti-trust laws. Wealth disparity closed when FDR enacted the most progressive agenda in US history paving the way for economic success for decades.
That ended when Reagan helped corpos break the social contract. Now here we are.
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Bow down
But people and systems react to change, sometimes violently. If he thinks an ever-richer oligarchy is the next steady state, he is dreaming.
I say: Good. This will make impoverishing them much more politically palatable.
Death, for starters. Memento mori, motherfuckers.
In my neighborhood in nyc, we have so many beautiful parks that are here because some past billionaire donated their land for public use.
Nowadays that sure as hell doesn’t happen.
That ended when Reagan helped corpos break the social contract. Now here we are.