|
|
|
|
|
|
by jjoonathan
4359 days ago
|
|
|
> massive social upheaval and eventually leading to revolution if ... the ruling classes refuse to redistribute voluntarily. The sad part is that his conclusion is only incorrect because the ruling class figured out (more plausibly, stumbled into) a strategy for doing precisely the minimum amount of redistribution required to avoid revolution. http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/anya-groner-the-heart-you-s... |
|
|
Another part of this is globalization -- you could argue that most people in the US (for example) are quite well off (as contrasted with complete destitution, starvation and lack of clean water) -- and one way to stave off revolution is to simply live on the other side of an ocean, and fill that ocean with friendly nuclear submarines and hangar ships.
But there is no guarantee such a scheme will last forever either -- as you'll likely still have people working in factories, and those factories will be producing (among other things) the weapons used for maintaining the status quo. At the very least it's hard to see how any industrial production could be made immune to strikes and sabotage, if the workers were desperate enough -- and that would likely result in a transfer of wealth (by no means is a "fair" outcome guaranteed, but change seems very likely).
I think it is too early to conclude that the revolution will never arrive. Be that just a small one (redistribution of wealth in the US for example) or a larger one (redistribution including the entire world).