Wealth And Effort
Any form of “ism” can work if it creates and sustains a large middle class that feels it can make it to the top of the pyramid of privilege by the fruits of their own labor. As soon as the bubble bursts and the middle class feels that the rich keep getting richer without any effort and the poor keep getting poorer regardless of effort, all is lost and a revolution is in the offing. Sure, a powerful police force may temporarily stave off the revolution, but not forever. Over time, the innate human desire for liberty trumps oppression like water dissolves rock.
In the USA, democracy and the right of every person to vote has worked pretty well to stave off the destruction of the middle class. However, when rich elites gain publicly invisible control over all political parties and force the government to allow them to operate unfettered without any oversight, the result is extreme capitalism and the potential fall of the middle class. I don’t know if it’s happening in America, but it sure seems like it. When big fat corpo bureaucracies demand and get capitalism on the way up and socialism (bailouts) on the way down, there’s no risk of consequences to their behavior and they have no reason to change their middle class busting ways. “Too big to fail” and “too little to succeed” sux for the middle class. Let them eat cake.
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I think you are right about the disparity of wealth and the ease of succeeding. Whether this leads to revolution is another matter. Control of wealth gives the wealthy unprecedented information control, and political advertising that manages to get people to vote against their interests has thus far been successful.
A good example of that is the TEA party that has aligned themselves with the party of wealth and privilege. Messaging gets twisted, the actual enemies are disguised, and even the issues are defined by the wealthy. By the time the TEA party recognizes what is happening, I fear that they may be completely disenfranchised.
Hi Joseph. That’s a really good point about the tea party.
I think the (almost) universal accessibility of the internet has broken the “unprecedented information control” chain.
Let’s hope so. I really do hope so. I’m afraid that only cynical Republicans and Democrats use the internet, though, and the rest of the Republicans watch Fox News.
Oh, that wasn’t nice to say. I do believe, however, that advertising pays off for politics. I watch their ads, and I’m almost convinced – until I engage my brain.