The Pathology of the Rich: Disposable Citizens

[georgephillip]

We are slowly getting rid of unions and their ability to strangehold the taxpayers. But we need to stick it to the corporations too and keep them from having any control or influence as well.

Can you give me an example of a union stranglehold on taxpayers that's as effective as Goldman Sachs's or Halliburton's?

 

[B. Kidd]

But........JFK too, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, which was the original point you were making.

Was it?
I thought I was making the point that rich losers like Bush are handed one opportunity after another in spite of their failures. JFK was born with a silver spoon, but he never failed as spectacularly as Dubya, and he never had a father elected to the White House to pave his way to the Presidency.

So, what is your endgame? Do away with inherited wealth and let the 'state' raise children?

 

[georgephillip]

Middle class demand creates jobs? LMFAO! Everybody's like, "We want stuff! Let's all get together and pitch in some bricks and turn that want into a factory and we can all work there!"

What fucking planet are you from?

"The MONDRAGON Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain. It was founded in the town of Mondragón in 1956 by graduates of a local technical college.

"Their first product was paraffin heaters.

"Currently it is the seventh-largest Spanish company in terms of asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country.

"At the end of 2012, it employed 80,321 people in 289 companies and organizations in four areas of activity: Finance, Industry, Retail and Knowledge.[1]"

Mondragon Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yeah? Cool story. Hate to break it to you, but "middle class demand" didn't create those jobs. Those guys who came together to put the company together created those jobs. Innovative minds and well-placed capital created those jobs, albeit in response to existing demand, but this is not the case with all job creation.

Henry Ford's company created a lot of jobs, too. Now, I'm not a historian, but it strikes me as unlikely that Ford's story began when he overheard other folks clamoring about their desire for someone to invent the automobile. Pretty sure his innovation helped create that demand where there had been none.

Essentially, though, what you're missing is that even where demand exists, someone still has to fork over the capital to get a product started. Giving all the credit to the whims of the proletariat ignores the risk of that capital investment and the innovation of the -actual- creators. The jobs don't create themselves just by virtue of everybody putting their wishes together.

Another Cool Story: No Rich Guys Needed:

"The determining factor in the creation of the Mondragon system was the arrival in 1941 of a young Catholic priest José María Arizmendiarrieta in Mondragón, a town with a population of 7,000 that had not yet recovered from the Spanish Civil War: poverty, hunger, exile and tension.[2]

"In 1943, Arizmendiarrieta established a technical college that became a training ground for generations of managers, engineers and skilled labour for local companies, and primarily for the co-operatives.[3]

"Before creating the first co-operative, Arizmendiarrieta spent a number of years educating young people about a form of humanism based on solidarity and participation, in harmony with Catholic Social Teaching, and the importance of acquiring the necessary technical knowledge.

"In 1955, he selected five of these young people to set up the first company of the co-operative and industrial beginning of the Mondragon Corporation.[4]

"The people were Usatorre, Larrañaga, Gorroñogoitia, Ormaechea and Ortubay, and the company was called Talleres Ulgor, named as an acronym from their surnames, known today as Fagor Electrodomésticos.

"The first 15 years were characterised by enormous dynamism. Many co-operatives were established, thanks to the autarky of the market and the awakening of the Spanish economy.

"During those years, also with the encouragement of Don José María, two bodies were set up that were to play a key role in the development of Mondragon -Caja Laboral (1959) and the Social Welfare Body Lagun Aro (1966).

"The first local group was created, Ularco, the embryo of the industrial co-operative associativism which has been so important in the Corporation’s history.

"In 1969, Eroski was set up by a merger of ten small local consumer co-operatives."

Mondragon Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[georgephillip]

But........JFK too, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, which was the original point you were making.

Was it?
I thought I was making the point that rich losers like Bush are handed one opportunity after another in spite of their failures. JFK was born with a silver spoon, but he never failed as spectacularly as Dubya, and he never had a father elected to the White House to pave his way to the Presidency.

So, what is your endgame? Do away with inherited wealth and let the 'state' raise children?

No.
Raise a wall between the state and the influence of private wealth.
Tax the rich instead of borrowing from them.
Raise you own children with the state providing free education (K-GS) and health care (Medicare for all ages).

 

[georgephillip]

the person who in all seriousness puts Karl Marx as somebody, whose words he deems the ultimate truth, can not be considered bright enough.
Or sane.

p.s. neither of the others EVER was writing about the "natural antagonism" - that is the marx's premise, but certainly not Adam Smith's.

You're saying Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Smith weren't aware of the Masters of Mankind and their relationship to the 99%?

"We know a lot about poverty lines but there is no such thing as a wealth line and the word 'enough' is not part of the vocabulary of this class. You needn’t believe me. Listen to the expert who said 'All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems in every age of the world to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.'

"That was not Karl Marx but Adam Smith, in his classic 1776 treatise on capitalism, the Wealth of Nations. Little has changed since then.”

Adam Smith's Lost Legacy: Adam Smith on 'the vile maxim of the masters of mankind'

What seems to escape you Sir, is that the "rich" you hold in contempt fund the leaders of the political whores who motivate you.

Not all rich people are evil, not all blacks steal, and not all whites are inbred.

Agreed.
Not all rich people are evil.
That doesn't mean all rich people don't depend upon an evil economic system for their success.
Possibly, the only way to get rid of the political whores is to eliminate all influence of private money on public office?

 

[georgephillip]

"'The rich are different from us,' F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, 'Yes, they have more money.'”

"The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway.

"The rich are different.

"The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and sycophants. Wealth breeds, as Fitzgerald illustrated in 'The Great Gatsby' and his short story 'The Rich Boy,' a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities.

"Colleagues, associates, employees, kitchen staff, servants, gardeners, tutors, personal trainers, even friends and family, bend to the whims of the wealthy or disappear.

"Once oligarchs achieve unchecked economic and political power, as they have in the United States, the citizens too become disposable."

Like Fitzgerald, Chris Hedges spent his early years among the rich and famous. At age 10 Chris earned a scholarship to an exclusive New England boarding school, and he spent some of his vacation time in the homes of his classmates:

"I spent time in the homes of the ultra-rich and powerful, watching my classmates, who were children, callously order around men and women who worked as their chauffeurs, cooks, nannies and servants.

"When the sons and daughters of the rich get into serious trouble there are always lawyers, publicists and political personages to protect them—George W. Bush’s life is a case study in the insidious affirmative action for the rich.

"The rich have a snobbish disdain for the poor—despite well-publicized acts of philanthropy—and the middle class.

"These lower classes are viewed as uncouth parasites, annoyances that have to be endured, at times placated and always controlled in the quest to amass more power and money."

Chris Hedges: Let?s Get This Class War Started - Chris Hedges - Truthdig

"The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults."

One last thing. . .

I feel like someone should point out what Hedges is doing here, maybe you don't realize it. With these quotes, he's pointing out some stereotypical flaws shared by people who've inherited wealth and had things handed to them their whole lives, yet casually tossing around, "the rich this" and "the rich that" as though these properties are shared by everyone with wealth.

"The rich" are not a singular entity with a unified purpose to fuck the poor. "The rich", like any other group of people, are a group of individuals, each with their own particular properties. Saying we should get a class war started because "the rich" do this and that is essentially the same as saying we should get a race war started because "the blacks" are in gangs.

Why do liberals feel that stereotyping is only illogical when it applies to race and sexual orientation?

I've spoken to many liberals who haven't done -shit- to research -any- of their opinions. If I used that experience to say, "Liberals don't research their points and therefore have no clue wtf they're talking about", would you not take issue with being branded ignorant simply because you and some of the ignorant people I've encountered happen to lean the same way politically?

Why is money a more failsafe way to assume that an entire demographic selected via a -solitary- commonality all share the same personality traits and should therefore be rebuked as a group?

I hate to break it to you, but the way you're painting an entire demographic negatively with a broad brush like this. . . it's only marginally less vile than your average KKK sermon.

If you took those quotes and a time machine back to the late 30's, replaced "rich" with "jew", you might could stir up enough angry National Socialists to take over a continent or three.

The class war started long before either of us was born and will be going on long after we are both dead and forgotten. I think you're right to point out the difference between those who have inherited their fortunes and those who have made their own. Maybe the key word here is "oligarch" as in those in the top 1% of all US earners. That one percent currently owns 40% of US wealth compared to the 7% that's owned by the bottom 80% of citizens. Oligarchs, in general, have never believed in self-sacrifice for the common good, and I don't see any indication the current crop is any different. Marx was right about a number of things including the idea that class struggle defines most of human history; our oligarchs know that even if they pretend otherwise. The question is when will the rest of us wake up and fight back?

 

[georgephillip]

Is the OP including the wealthy liberals in this theory? Pelosi, Clintons, Obamas, Kerry and others are quite wealthy. Many got wealthy just by serving our country. Oprah is one of the wealthiest people on the planet, like Soros. Some liberal celebrities are raking it in, too.

I take it you are attempting yet again to attack the wealthy, but as usual you intend to leave the liberals out of the bashing.

If it was up to me, Pelosi, both Clintons (and all the Bushes) along with Obama and Kerry and my favorite Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, would draw their last breath in federal prison. My argument is the rich are the problem, and they have been since the fall of man. Politics don't matter.

 

[initforme]

"Can you give me an example of a union stranglehold on taxpayers that's as effective as Goldman Sachs's or Halliburton's?"

No in the end I cant. While the right cries and bemoans a school teacher making $40,000 plus benefits, (whoa, overpaid, underworked, all those typical garbage lines), the uber wealthy rake up millions. Perfect way to hide real intentions.

 

[georgephillip]

"Can you give me an example of a union stranglehold on taxpayers that's as effective as Goldman Sachs's or Halliburton's?"

No in the end I cant. While the right cries and bemoans a school teacher making $40,000 plus benefits, (whoa, overpaid, underworked, all those typical garbage lines), the uber wealthy rake up millions. Perfect way to hide real intentions.

Some hedge fund honchos rake in billion$ and pay 15% in federal taxes.
A century ago the capitalists at least built railroads and steel mills, thereby providing millions of jobs. Today the rich make money with financial instruments designed to gamble with other people's money, and when enough bets go bad, the government rides to their rescue. I don't see it getting better anytime soon since Republicans AND Democrats depend on the 1% to finance their election campaigns and retirements.

 

[Ava]

"'The rich are different from us,' F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, 'Yes, they have more money.'”

"The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway.

"The rich are different.

"The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and sycophants. Wealth breeds, as Fitzgerald illustrated in 'The Great Gatsby' and his short story 'The Rich Boy,' a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities.

"Colleagues, associates, employees, kitchen staff, servants, gardeners, tutors, personal trainers, even friends and family, bend to the whims of the wealthy or disappear.

"Once oligarchs achieve unchecked economic and political power, as they have in the United States, the citizens too become disposable."

Like Fitzgerald, Chris Hedges spent his early years among the rich and famous. At age 10 Chris earned a scholarship to an exclusive New England boarding school, and he spent some of his vacation time in the homes of his classmates:

"I spent time in the homes of the ultra-rich and powerful, watching my classmates, who were children, callously order around men and women who worked as their chauffeurs, cooks, nannies and servants.

"When the sons and daughters of the rich get into serious trouble there are always lawyers, publicists and political personages to protect them—George W. Bush’s life is a case study in the insidious affirmative action for the rich.

"The rich have a snobbish disdain for the poor—despite well-publicized acts of philanthropy—and the middle class.

"These lower classes are viewed as uncouth parasites, annoyances that have to be endured, at times placated and always controlled in the quest to amass more power and money."

Chris Hedges: Let?s Get This Class War Started - Chris Hedges - Truthdig

"The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults."

The ultra rich can continue to have their snobbish disdain for the poor as long they continue with their philanthropy and creating the millions of jobs for the middleclass. The position of their nose is no business of mine.

Hear! Hear! There is a place for us all.

 

[francoHFW]

The 20's were the last time Pubs were so rich and arrogant- same result, a world depression. Unfortunately, they've been able to protect overly low taxes on the bloated rich..Thanks Ronnie...see sig para 1.

 

[Political Junky]

The Right really fell for that election tactic of calling the rich, job creators.

 

[The Rabbi]

The Right really fell for that election tactic of calling the rich, job creators.

Because government creates jobs, right?
The OP is a pastiche of cliches and wrong headed misinformation.

 

[georgephillip]

"'The rich are different from us,' F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, 'Yes, they have more money.'”

"The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway.

"The rich are different.

"The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and sycophants. Wealth breeds, as Fitzgerald illustrated in 'The Great Gatsby' and his short story 'The Rich Boy,' a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities.

"Colleagues, associates, employees, kitchen staff, servants, gardeners, tutors, personal trainers, even friends and family, bend to the whims of the wealthy or disappear.

"Once oligarchs achieve unchecked economic and political power, as they have in the United States, the citizens too become disposable."

Like Fitzgerald, Chris Hedges spent his early years among the rich and famous. At age 10 Chris earned a scholarship to an exclusive New England boarding school, and he spent some of his vacation time in the homes of his classmates:

"I spent time in the homes of the ultra-rich and powerful, watching my classmates, who were children, callously order around men and women who worked as their chauffeurs, cooks, nannies and servants.

"When the sons and daughters of the rich get into serious trouble there are always lawyers, publicists and political personages to protect them—George W. Bush’s life is a case study in the insidious affirmative action for the rich.

"The rich have a snobbish disdain for the poor—despite well-publicized acts of philanthropy—and the middle class.

"These lower classes are viewed as uncouth parasites, annoyances that have to be endured, at times placated and always controlled in the quest to amass more power and money."

Chris Hedges: Let?s Get This Class War Started - Chris Hedges - Truthdig

"The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults."

The ultra rich can continue to have their snobbish disdain for the poor as long they continue with their philanthropy and creating the millions of jobs for the middleclass. The position of their nose is no business of mine.

Hear! Hear! There is a place for us all.

And that place is called slavery

"'We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are,' Wendell Berry writes.

“'Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all—by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians—be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss (frack) in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it.

"'We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us. How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.”

Chris Hedges: Let?s Get This Class War Started - Chris Hedges - Truthdig

Radical change means changing the root cause of our problem.
That means changing our economic system before it destroys our democracy.

 

[georgephillip]

The 20's were the last time Pubs were so rich and arrogant- same result, a world depression. Unfortunately, they've been able to protect overly low taxes on the bloated rich..Thanks Ronnie...see sig para 1.

Once upon a time in the Land of the Free rising productivity from one generation to the next really lifted most boats; not so much since the Gipper's day.

"The United States has historically been viewed as the 'land of opportunity,' a society in which a
child's chances of succeeding do not depend heavily on her parents' income or circumstances. But there is
growing evidence that intergenerational income mobility in the U.S. is actually lower than in many other
developed countries. Building on our prior research, we set out to study whether tax expenditures such as
the Earned Income Tax Credit can increase the level of intergenerational income mobility in the U.S.
We began our analysis by compiling statistics from millions of anonymous earnings records to
measure intergenerational mobility across areas of the United States. The core sample of children used to
calculate these local intergenerational mobility measures consists of children who were born in 1980 or
1981 and are U.S. citizens as of 2013. We used family measures of (pre-tax) income (summing across
married spouses) both for parents and children (when adults). We measure children’s household income
in 2010-2011, when they are approximately 30 years old. We measure their parents’ household income
between 1996 and 2000."

http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/website/IGE/Executive%20Summary.pdf

I'm sure we'll all be fat 'n happy once that ol' trickle down finally gets turned on???

 

[zeke]

The Right really fell for that election tactic of calling the rich, job creators.

Because government creates jobs, right?
The OP is a pastiche of cliches and wrong headed misinformation.

And the above is what passes for "intelligent" Republican response. Just fuking ignore the fact that the promise of job creation by the very wealthy was a bunch of bull shit.

Where are all those promised good paying jobs rabbit? China? India?

 

[georgephillip]

The Right really fell for that election tactic of calling the rich, job creators.

I think Hedges is arguing that's because Americans have forgotten the difference between "smart" and "greed."

"Because we don't understand the pathology of the rich. We've been saturated with cultural images and a kind of cultural deification of wealth and those who have wealth.

"We are being--you know, they present people of immense wealth as somehow leaders--oracles, even.

"And we don't grasp internally what it is an oligarchic class is finally about or how venal and morally bankrupt they are.

"We need to recover the language of class warfare and grasp what is happening to us, and we need to shatter this self-delusion that somehow if, as Obama says, we work hard enough and study hard enough, we can be one of them.

"The fact is, the people who created the economic mess that we're in were the best-educated people in the country--Larry Summers, a former president of Harvard, and others.

"The issue is not education.

"The issue is greed."

Story

 

[Old Rocks]

We knew asbestos was bad news by 1900. Yet we continued to manufacture and use that material, thereby making a few very wealthy, and many, many workers and their families very dead. This is the classic case of the disdain of the very wealthy and corperations for the working class.

 

[Stephanie]

All the conservatives here just came in their pants at the thought that though hard work they too can become billionaires and treat people like worthless trash also.

What a fool you are.

that's the type of people you find in the OWS

 

[georgephillip]

The Right really fell for that election tactic of calling the rich, job creators.

Because government creates jobs, right?
The OP is a pastiche of cliches and wrong headed misinformation.

How would you answer the following question, first posed nearly a century ago?

"'Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that government and capitalism continue to exist in spite of all the evil and trouble they are causing in the world?' the anarchist Alexander Berkman wrote in his essay 'The Idea Is the Thing...'"

Chris Hedges: Our Invisible Revolution - Chris Hedges - Truthdig

Maybe that War to End All Wars is arriving a century after it was first advertised?