[shimman]

Why wouldn't it be in the elite's interests? You're acting like we don't have an entire written history of elites throughout time immortal making terrible decisions that ended up killing 100s of millions of people from things like colonialism or slave trade or selling weapons of death.

There is no reason for billionaires to play nice with the public because they will never be held accountable under the current system.

You have to stop relying on their nonexistent "better angels" and actually start resisting and fighting back. Every single right or benefit that workers have gained was because they died fighting for it.

We have to continue this fight going forward because we're finding out that no one will save us except ourselves.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Perhaps you could clarify your view. Here is my understanding:

* The reason MIT has such a big endowment is because wealthy elites gave MIT money.

* The reason MIT is short on federal funds is because poorly educated voters (working-class) put their man in office.

Since you reflexively believe elites are the big bad, you should be happy with the new tax on big endowments like that of MIT. Soak the rich. Perhaps the endowment tax should go even higher. Power to the people.

Sound about right?

[andix]

I agree with you to some point. I just wouldn't frame it in a Marxist way, working class vs. everyone else. It concerns nearly everyone, not just the working class. Limiting it to the working class, excludes many influential people who are more wealthy, far away from being billionaires, but still suffer from the current developments.

We've seen such cycles before. Elites getting too wealthy and influential, until they are stopped. Long ago it was feudalism. But even early capitalism had such an example with the Gilded Age in the US. After WW2 it probably reached the state of being mostly reversed, only to start redeveloping. Funnily enough the Gilded Age was ended by Republicans.