[mxkopy]

Game theory says otherwise. If there's a substantive distinction between the rich and the poor, then the interests that align them need to be greater than their own individual interests for any sort of peace to work. As it stands, the rich frequently engage in bottom-of-the-barrel, self-interested machinations, so it makes 0 sense from a game perspective for the poor to refrain from doing the same.

The obvious answer is to make the distinction not substantive, i.e. have a middle class; unfortunately the U.S. seems too preoccupied with other things to enact this solution

[hayst4ck]

This game:

https://ncase.me/trust/

Showcases exactly the point mxkopy is making.

When you let people who defect profit, then you will create more defectors. Lack of punishment makes crime a winning strategy.

[WalterBright]

> the rich frequently engage in bottom-of-the-barrel, self-interested machinations

Of course they do. So do you, and everyone else.

[DFHippie]

In a certain sense this is true. Giving to charity is a self-interested machination because the giver gets something out of the transaction: satisfaction, a belief in their own goodness and self-worth, the esteem of others, maybe a ticket to heaven. But in a more useful sense this is false. We use "self-interested machinations" to describe things that are deceptive and harmful to others, not adopting puppies. Even people who apply the nihilistic self-interest-all-the-way down argument to neutralize criticism in one case will tend to abandon it in another and become the critic.