Filthy Rich American tells other Filthy Rich Americans that the Pitchforks Are Coming
Excerpted from Nick Hanauer’s OpEd in Politico (read more here),
Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires
You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor.
I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine.
…
But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?
I see pitchforks.
At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.
If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.
Many of us think we’re special because “this is America.” We think we’re immune to the same forces that started the Arab Spring—or the French and Russian revolutions, for that matter. I know you fellow .01%ers tend to dismiss this kind of argument; I’ve had many of you tell me to my face I’m completely bonkers. And yes, I know there are many of you who are convinced that because you saw a poor kid with an iPhone that one time, inequality is a fiction.
Here’s what I say to you: You’re living in a dream world. What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that we’re somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time. Any student of history knows that’s not the way it happens. Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody. But especially for us.
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2014/06/filthy-rich-american-tells-other-filthy.html
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Blah, perhaps?
I am glad to see another who uses that gray matter between their ears. I am not a conspiracy type of any kind, but it sure makes sense to me that when the people themselves have had enough of the corruption we witness these days, someone always STANDS UP in front of GOD and this fellow Patriots, and fires that shot, hell and payback is a dish best served cold on his mind, and its just a matter of getting enough followers on board to help along to make it a reality. As a history bluff, its always been my favored subject and study, I see direct connections to the past with the attitude of the people these days. I am not scared, maybe I should be, but I’m not, because I’ve made preperations to sustain myself and family members for a period of two years to ride it out, so long as I don’t get my ass wacked in the process of defending it.
There is no doubt in this Patriots mind that ugly things are festering on the minds (are at are just beyond another incident to cause things to completely get out of anyone’s control), of what we might expect to be normal people, its in the air, we all feel it, it stinks to high heaven and if this process of hateful rhetoric and displacement of the people’s hard earned labor is not halted soon, well, history books will tell the final chapter of how this is worked out among everyone. It won’t be Purdy either. People I talk to daily are really having extreme difficulty in trying to understand why it is being allowed to foment, that’s the number 1 thing on their minds and how to stop it is yet another. You cannot be going around creating havoc upon a nations citizens, trying through lies, damned lies and more lies to divide them into competing camps regarding the though process of what constitutes their personal liberty, it does not work that way, its either all being treated equally or everyone feeling like the target of others hatred that always starts fueling the eventual fires that strike all of us.
As this technique has been implemented throughout history, if implemented by those in power, it works, of “divide and conquer” goes, so too does our new reality these days, and the people are not even close to being happy about it, not one damned bit, it infuriates them to no end. It will only be a matter of time before someone starts the fire, and then watch the hell out, you’d better pick a side and stay there, there will be no fence sitters in the next uprising. Its either the precepts of a Republic for which it STILL STANDS, not a g-damned democracy as they keep reminding their idiots, or its a road to serfdom, can’t have it both ways. The very people who are supposedly in charge, or suppose to be leading this nation on its rightful path to prosperity and future wealth creation for everyone, have seemed to have abandoned all else but, themselves.
We recognize it as “crony capitalism” or to be more exact, “fascism” where the Corporations combine their resources with the ruling class, government elitist and screw everyone else, if you are a member of the ruling elites, no problems for you, but, out side of that circle, yea, too bad, it sucks to be a pleab’s but, in the back of everyone’s mind is WHY. GREED, its that simple, plain old as old as the world is, human GREED. The attitude of “he who has the most toys wins” is still working its heart out to screw all else except itself.
I pray for the continued process of peace, understanding among everyone over war, but, as most understand I can’t be fooling myself into thinking every thing is peachy, when, in fact, its the direct opposite and on top of it, understand where it is assigned to for the reasons, it makes me even madder when realizing its the very people who, they too have sworn an Oath of fidelity as I once have, who are the responsible parties/individuals for the mess. I, like most around me, feel BETRAYED, and left without representation among the masses. That will not be able to control the anger, but, it will help to clarify who the target of my anger and wrath will be directed, and the resolve of myself with those of equal mindset, well, we will have our vengeance one day, either in this life or the next. Bank on it.
Semper Fi.