The Rules of the New Aristocracy

[Lost Soal]

I think this is the appropriate forum, JMS has a post up on his facebook page pretty much nailing the current problems in america and the fact that corporations have become the new aristocracy.
Link

THE RULES OF THE NEW ARISTOCRACY

It doesn’t matter how much food costs increase, doesn’t matter if you can only afford fast food, we will always be able to buy steak. And we will invest heavily in fast food stocks to ensure we make money off this. Doesn't matter how much gas costs, we will always be able to afford it.

In addition to poor food choices and health coverage, your kids will grow up without proper nutrition which will cause them problems on every level, from physical to educational difficulties. Our kids will grow up straight and true and healthy.

It doesn’t matter how much an education costs, doesn’t matter if your kids can’t afford to go to college or come out with massive debt, we will always be able to send our kids to university. And because a lot of our income is derived from tax incentives and taxpayer-financed bailouts your taxes are sending our kids to school. But you do not have the right to any of our money to send your kid to school.

If you or your kids want to start a business, you will find that because we’ve sucked all the money out of the economy, there is simply no available cash around to help you finance your startup. (Unless you want to go to your friends online at sites like Indiegogo, and isn’t that just cute?) We just cut our kids a check and tell them to go have fun.

Your kids are born with a glass ceiling above which they will almost certainly never have the opportunity to rise. Our kids are born with a marble floor beneath which they will never be allowed to fall.

If you accidentally provide incorrect information on your tax return, you could lose your house, your possessions, and your livelihood. We lie all the time on our tax information and none of us ever have to deal with this. We squirrel away trillions of dollars in overseas accounts and do all we can to ensure that your money never leaves our control because we'll doubtless need to scoop out more of it soon.

You live in a Company Town; we pay you to work for us, while making sure that we own all the stores in town that sell our goods, the doctors offices where you go in town, the restaurants where you eat, and that we charge you just enough to make sure that at the end of the week you don’t have any leftover money to squirrel away, so you can never leave the company town, can never get ahead, and can never risk criticizing the company town. You work for us. We own the town where you live. We own you.

If one of you takes a hundred dollar bill from the cash register, you will go to jail. If we take billions out of the savings of ordinary people then crash the economy, costing thousands of jobs, not one of us will ever be prosecuted. Because the New Aristocracy is above such things. So we’ll just keep on doing it. Enjoy the ride.

Your local police belong to us now. We have militarized them into soldiers who treat you like terrorists. If you speak against us, we will ensure that you are tear gassed and beaten and handcuffed and caged into “free speech zones” designed to make you forget that the whole country was supposed to be a free speech zone. But now you have free speech only when and where we say you can have it. Meanwhile, we can say and do pretty much anything we want, to you or anyone else, and get away with it.

If you happen to figure out our game and talk about it, we will accuse you of Class Warfare, in order to distract anyone from realizing that yes, there was a class war, that it was against you, that the war is over, and we won.

Yes, you get a chance to vote for congresspeople and senators and presidents. But only after we’ve decided, long before the first ballot is ever cast, which candidate we will finance. Those we like, those who will give us what we want first and foremost, we will finance and you will get to vote on one of the two pre-screened candidates we have given you. If we don’t like them, if we think they will challenge us, we will not finance them and you will never have the chance to vote on them. Because you don’t get a real vote in the New Aristocracy.

We own the White House. We own Congress. They pass the bills we write for them. They make the laws we want them to make, and make sure that they only limit you, never us. We own the courts. We own the lawyers. They are the club we use to beat you into submission.

There are no Democratic or Republican Senators, or Congresspeople or Presidents. Those parties have not existed for decades. There is only the Party of the New Aristocracy. The rest is Kabuki theater. It is Mexican Wrestling. It is the illusion of choice, of difference, of democracy. This is not a democracy. It is a monarchy of money. In that monarchy, we are the Aristocracy, the royalty, and what we say, goes.

If you dump trash illegally, you will be fined and potentially arrested. If we dump hundreds of tons of toxic waste into rivers and streams, none of us will ever be arrested and if we are fined, we will simply raise our prices so that you are the one to actually pay for what we did.

We are the New Aristocracy, and we do not pay fines.

We are the New Aristocracy, and we are immune from prosecution.

We are the New Aristocracy, and we find your poverty and your powerlessness and your struggles disgusting. You are beneath us.

Understand something: we don’t want you to succeed. We don’t want someone coming along to slice the pie into smaller pieces. We want to own all of it. If we really wanted more of you where we are, do you think we would have spent the last thirty years consolidating every major company into smaller and smaller groups owned by fewer and fewer people?

We are the New Aristocracy because we were born into it. We got our money the old fashioned, Medieval way: our parents gave it to us. We were born into the wealth that we stole from you and your family over the last fifty years. You were not born into anything other than poverty and struggle. You will never be us. You will never have our advantages. And we like it that way.

We like that you peer through the bars of your cage to all that we have. We like that you think you can have it yourself one day. Because that illusion keeps you on our side. But you will never have those things. We’ve made sure of that. Because what you’re looking at is ours, and we do not share.

The world we have carefully constructed for you is like one of those boardwalk games of chance where if you knock down the big pins with a baseball, you win a huge prize. But the pins are weighted and positioned so that you will never, ever knock them down. Yet you’ll keep paying anyway, and keep throwing, until you exhaust yourself and your wallet. And we like it that way.

We don’t want you to have opportunities, we don’t want you to have an education, we don’t want you to have a voice in what happens to you, we don’t want you healthy, we don’t want you to do anything but be frightened, helpless, docile consumers who will eat and watch and buy what we tell you to eat and watch and buy while we keep all the good stuff to ourselves.

Because you’re not in our club.

Because we are the New Aristocracy.

And you are the New Peasants.

And we very, very, very much like it that way

[Channel72]

I doubt most C-suite executives are actually consciously thinking about new ways to oppress the masses. They're just thinking about how to please their shareholders and make their stock go up. They put way more thought into screwing over their competition than "keeping the little guy down".

[Channel72]

Also, regarding the election of candidates - there's no "cabal" of evil corporate executives who decides who should run for President. A Republican administration benefits different corporations than a Democrat administration. For example, Exxon or Haliburton would likely benefit more from a Republican administration. Obama, by the way, was elected and re-elected despite some of the best efforts of corporate big-wigs throwing their money at the Republican candidate. Obama actually raised most of his campaign money from the masses; i.e. individual small donations which amounted to more in aggregate than gigantic donations from corporate overlords.

This is the same model used by Wikipedia, which generates almost 50 million a year.

[Lord MJ]

Also, regarding the election of candidates - there's no "cabal" of evil corporate executives who decides who should run for President. A Republican administration benefits different corporations than a Democrat administration. For example, Exxon or Haliburton would likely benefit more from a Republican administration. Obama, by the way, was elected and re-elected despite some of the best efforts of corporate big-wigs throwing their money at the Republican candidate. Obama actually raised most of his campaign money from the masses; i.e. individual small donations which amounted to more than small gigantic donations from corporate overlords.

There might not be an "Evil Cabal" but make no mistake, you do need to be deemed acceptable to the corporate establishment to even appear on the ballot. Obama pleased the corporations, that's how he even was even to be a factor. On the Democratic side for this election, Clinton has already pleased the corporate establishment. On the Republican side, the candidate that pleased the establishment tarnished himself, and as a result the other Republicans are now jockeying for favor from corporations and business interests.

[Tribble]

And this is surprising because...?

Human society has always followed the Golden Rule: those who have the gold make the rules. And I highly doubt that's going to change anytime soon.

[Irbis]

I doubt most C-suite executives are actually consciously thinking about new ways to oppress the masses. They're just thinking about how to please their shareholders and make their stock go up. They put way more thought into screwing over their competition than "keeping the little guy down".

Do you think nobles were thinking about new ways to oppress the masses, or just laws creep they endorsed eventually shafted the commoners and bourgeoisie? What interest has group being at the top in allowing easy access to its ranks? None. As long as they can afford the basics, why they should care about others?

Obama, by the way, was elected and re-elected despite some of the best efforts of corporate big-wigs throwing their money at the Republican candidate. Obama actually raised most of his campaign money from the masses; i.e. individual small donations which amounted to more in aggregate than gigantic donations from corporate overlords.

So what? It's like saying that one noble is better than the other because he didn't made a fortune exploiting backbreaking work of his serfs, but instead used work of serfs to extract ore underground, with excesses safely hidden from sight. Obama did use crowdfunding, but he still had massive backing from businesses.

Hell, look at the reforms he will be remembered for: giving rights to gays. That is cheap, his one potentially painful reform, healthcare, still gives massive funds to private sector instead of making tight, economic system sharing costs equally.

This is the same model used by Wikipedia, which generates almost 50 million a year.

What, you missed all the banners on Wiki begging for donations to continue running? Their model is completely non-sustainable.

[Simon_Jester]

I doubt most C-suite executives are actually consciously thinking about new ways to oppress the masses. They're just thinking about how to please their shareholders and make their stock go up. They put way more thought into screwing over their competition than "keeping the little guy down".

Then again, the average medieval aristocrat did things the same way. He didn't think very hard about 'keeping the little guy down;' he just enforced his own laws on his own estate. Most of his attention was devoted to his rivals and superiors among the nobility.

The fact that his laws had the effect of brutalizing, tyrannizing, and oppressing the people who lived on his land... well, so what?

And this is surprising because...?

Human society has always followed the Golden Rule: those who have the gold make the rules. And I highly doubt that's going to change anytime soon.

There was considerably more meaningful conflict between political factions and business interests if you go back half a century or more. The entire Progressive Era, running roughly from 1900 to 1940, was full of this. While some very powerful business interests made a lot of money off the social changes of that era in the US, a lot of new programs and laws went into place to help control and harness corporate forces and use them to drive general prosperity for the American middle class.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

About sums it up.

[Zixinus]

I feel a lot like what the OP's post is riling up in a person when I gone to job interviews. It didn't help with the interviews.

[wautd]

But but... trickly down economy. I mean, look at countries like India, China or Mexico. Some of the most obscenely rich people of the world are living there, and its population has such a high living standard.

[Borgholio]

Hey, trickle down actually works. I mean look at how the GOP is fighting Obama tooth and nail, and our economy is growing as a result! Imagine how bad things would be if they let Obama have his way.


...


And...I just threw up in my mouth for even thinking that.

[Metahive]

But but... trickly down economy. I mean, look at countries like India, China or Mexico. Some of the most obscenely rich people of the world are living there, and its population has such a high living standard.

Trickle down does totally work, it's just that the yellow stuff trickling down isn't gold.

[His Divine Shadow]

I dunno but in the last few years I've grown an ever increasing and potent hatred for the rich, to the point I wouldn't mind another 1790 or 1917.

[Channel72]

I doubt most C-suite executives are actually consciously thinking about new ways to oppress the masses. They're just thinking about how to please their shareholders and make their stock go up. They put way more thought into screwing over their competition than "keeping the little guy down".

Then again, the average medieval aristocrat did things the same way. He didn't think very hard about 'keeping the little guy down;' he just enforced his own laws on his own estate. Most of his attention was devoted to his rivals and superiors among the nobility.

The fact that his laws had the effect of brutalizing, tyrannizing, and oppressing the people who lived on his land... well, so what?

Yeah, but the OP gives the impression that there is an orchestrated, carefully constructed malicious conspiracy to "oppress the masses", which a bunch of corporate executives are directing. But in reality, corporate executives are more concerned about OTHER RICH PEOPLE than they are about keeping the little guy down. You think Steve Jobs was worried about the middle class getting educated? No, he was worried about Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. He was worried about Samsung coming out with a new tablet.

Corporations do try to "mind control" the masses via marketing, but only to the extent that it leads to more revenue. They don't care if people "eat healthy" (some corporations WANT you to eat healthy because it increases their revenue!), or get an education, or become rich yourself, etc. Rich people, in fact, are just another market - certain corporations cater to rich people, and so it's in their interest for more rich people to exist. If people can't afford iPads and Mercedes Benz and Gucci, a lot of corporations are going to suffer.

The point is that the OP is ridiculously oversimplified. Yes, rich people have enormous advantages in life that poor people will likely never have. But this isn't fucking the same as 18th century France - there's a LOT more factors in play in the 21st corporate world.

[K. A. Pital]

Actually, considering some latest research in the field (Picketty's Capital in the XXI century), the inequality gap is close to XIX century France. The standard changed, but the gap is enormous again. Postwar or post-Depression decades were a true abberation.

[Channel72]

The inequality gap is definitely insane, especially within the top 1% itself. But the overall quality of life is much better on average than 18th century France. The people who are truly suffering today in any way comparable to 18th century France are those living at or below the poverty line, which is less than 20% in the US at least. I'm not saying inequality and poverty ISN'T a major problem, just that the exaggerations in the OP don't really help. The reasons for this inequality and poverty are far more complicated than "evil cabal of Scrooge McDuck clones is oppressing everyone!!!"

A far, far more significant problem is how corporations abuse 3rd world work-forces, rather than any political or social control they exert domestically.

[Broomstick]

The people who are truly suffering today in any way comparable to 18th century France are those living at or below the poverty line, which is less than 20% in the US at least.

Speaking as someone who genuinely has been living at or just below the poverty line in the US these past few years - no, my suffering is not comparable to 18th Century France. My life isn't all roses and puppies, but it's a fuckton better than that of a poor French person in that time period. Hell, in some ways it's better than that of a middle class French person of that era.

There are people in the US in genuinely desperate straits, but they're a minority of the Official Poor.

[Channel72]

Probably the dumbest thing about the OP is how it claims the "EVIL CORPORATE OVERLOADS" don't want the average person to be educated.

Of course corporations want you to be educated. Educated people generally have higher incomes, and people with higher incomes SPEND more. Low income citizens are much less useful to corporations, unless we're talking about a corporation that specifically targets a lower-income market, like Walmart.

[Block]

Probably the dumbest thing about the OP is how it claims the "EVIL CORPORATE OVERLOADS" don't want the average person to be educated.

I think you can argue that they don't want the average person to be educated past a certain point because at this point they're focused on syphoning off as much as they can simply so they can say they won. One of the issues with focusing only on short term gains and stock price is that it promotes extremely shortsighted thinking, which can permeate someone's entire life.

[Metahive]

Probably the dumbest thing about the OP is how it claims the "EVIL CORPORATE OVERLOADS" don't want the average person to be educated.

Of course corporations want you to be educated. Educated people generally have higher incomes, and people with higher incomes SPEND more. Low income citizens are much less useful to corporations, unless we're talking about a corporation that specifically targets a lower-income market, like Walmart.

You expect too much rationality from the 1%.

EDIT:
If they actually thought this far ahead we wouldn't have half the problems we have right now.

[Simon_Jester]

Corporations have a vested interest in a very specific type of education, and only the vaguest, most indirect interest in the overall level of education of society. That indirect interest has no practical effect on stock prices and is therefore largely ignored by modern corporate leaders.

Yeah, but the OP gives the impression that there is an orchestrated, carefully constructed malicious conspiracy to "oppress the masses", which a bunch of corporate executives are directing. But in reality, corporate executives are more concerned about OTHER RICH PEOPLE than they are about keeping the little guy down. You think Steve Jobs was worried about the middle class getting educated? No, he was worried about Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. He was worried about Samsung coming out with a new tablet.

Honestly, the vibe I got was "you have problems, but we don't give a shit, because we will always have enough money and enough control of your money that we are immune to those problems."

Not conspiracy, just... aristocracy. Rule by an elite, which is quite happy to stay in power, and which collectively takes a few reasonable precautions to remain there (like bribing legislators). No active malice toward the masses is required to make this poisonous; it's inherently poisonous once you reach a certain critical mass.

The point is that the OP is ridiculously oversimplified. Yes, rich people have enormous advantages in life that poor people will likely never have. But this isn't fucking the same as 18th century France - there's a LOT more factors in play in the 21st corporate world.

The main problem is that, like 18th century France, there is a real sense that a better life for the average person is possible... if only the elite would collectively get out of the way and allow reasonable reforms.

Unlike 18th century France, no one's likely to starve if this better life is not made available- but we will see a growing fraction of children growing up poor, improperly nourished, and brutally, bitterly ignorant.

[Darmalus]

Absolute conditions matter as much, if not more, than relative wealth disparity.

If you had a really good safety net, where no matter what happened you could count on having food, shelter and clothes enough to be comfortable, the system would be stable no matter how many orders of magnitude more wealth the wealthy had as long as the excesses of the oligarchy were largely invisible day to day.

Personally, I think this is the kind of future we can expect. A tiny handful of people own and produce basically everything via automation and most people grow live and die with full bellies and no education because there aren't any jobs to do anyway.

[Simon_Jester]

The main reason I think this is unstable is that as automation makes it easier and easier to make do without workers... honestly, it makes it easier to make do without owners.

Or at least without the dedicated class of corporate raider-executive types whose entire justification for existence is that they can (allegedly) efficiently administrate large groups of humans, even if they're entirely ignorant of technical matters.

So the question is, can that class propagate itself, while arbitrarily denying the other 99% of the human race access to XYZ*, in a society that may or may not actually need it to function? Most historical aristocracies served a practical social utility, usually a military one; remove that utility and the aristocrats become irrelevant and are replaced, much as the medieval nobility was bought out and absorbed by the industrial-era capitalists.

*I'm not sure it matters what XYZ is. I mean, obviously you get a revolution much faster if XYZ is something like "food" or "life-saving medicine." But if it's something people want, and are pretty sure they could have... they will not accept being denied indefinitely. We're gradually seeing this with health insurance in the US; the sheer public desire for some kind of resolution to the problem of it being so stupidly expensive is gradually wearing down the antitaxers and antigovernment people opposed to paying for it.
_________________________

[Irbis]

But in reality, corporate executives are more concerned about OTHER RICH PEOPLE than they are about keeping the little guy down. You think Steve Jobs was worried about the middle class getting educated? No, he was worried about Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. He was worried about Samsung coming out with a new tablet.

And just why you think it's exclusive?

To take Steve Jobs as an example, first thing he did after returning to Apple was axing all charity support Apple did and ordering full use of Dutch/Irish sandwich. Maybe it was done to increase margins against other companies, but immediate effect was still fucking up the poor without lube.

Corporations do try to "mind control" the masses via marketing, but only to the extent that it leads to more revenue. They don't care if people "eat healthy" (some corporations WANT you to eat healthy because it increases their revenue!), or get an education, or become rich yourself, etc.

The corporation you quoted is one selling luxury food for affluent people. Normal food company? Oh, more processing, better double usage of preservatives, additives, and let's replace real meat with MSM or even better, pink slime, proles can't notice the difference anyway.

End result is still totally the same as if it would be under a conspiracy

Rich people, in fact, are just another market - certain corporations cater to rich people, and so it's in their interest for more rich people to exist. If people can't afford iPads and Mercedes Benz and Gucci, a lot of corporations are going to suffer.

You know that companies catering to truly rich artificially limit production? Ferrari producing only 399 cars of new model? Hand bags and suits you need to commission then wait in line for it to be hand produced? When you get to goods to truly rich people, demand ceases to matter, there is literally no difference how many are out there. In fact, the smaller the number, the better, you won't risk someone will buy out the supply of Enzos before you have a chance to.

Common sense rules cease to matter in upper strata market.

The point is that the OP is ridiculously oversimplified. Yes, rich people have enormous advantages in life that poor people will likely never have. But this isn't fucking the same as 18th century France - there's a LOT more factors in play in the 21st corporate world.

Oh, yes, it isn't the same - you could have find a noble or two that actually believed their propaganda and worked for the good of the state. Today, we have 'greed is good' creed and part of brainwashed masses honestly believing taxing oh so poor superrich is going to mildly inconvenience them, oh noes

The inequality gap is definitely insane, especially within the top 1% itself. But the overall quality of life is much better on average than 18th century France.

So what.

You could have said 18th century France had a better lot than 8th century medieval France. Which probably had it better than Ötzi the Iceman, who in turn was better off than early humans on African savannah. It still doesn't matter, as it's just sophistry on the level of "why they don't eat cake?".

When society as a whole has means to effortlessly provide X level of living to everyone, yet the actual level is Y, where Y << X, and the difference ends up in the pockets of top 1%, it doesn't fucking matter if Ötzi the Iceman had worse life. People will start asking themselves if the 1% really deserves it - and so far, the only possible reply is, they almost overwhelmingly don't.

A far, far more significant problem is how corporations abuse 3rd world work-forces, rather than any political or social control they exert domestically.

You think these two issues aren't linked?

Of course corporations want you to be educated. Educated people generally have higher incomes, and people with higher incomes SPEND more. Low income citizens are much less useful to corporations, unless we're talking about a corporation that specifically targets a lower-income market, like Walmart.

You're silly. If everyone is educated, who will be butlers, gardeners, and room cleaners?

Okay, jokes aside, the problem with education is exactly the same as with the rest of the economy - idiots pressuring universities to make profit, tax dodging meaning less money available for education, mass privatization of assets. All this leads to universities hunting more affluent people, poor being no longer capable of sending children to universities, creating self-sustaining spiral where more and more people are excluded.

Again, it might not be conscious conspiracy, but the end result is almost identical, more education for rich, less and worse for everyone below. Had the rich have to rely on the same schools as everyone else, with meritocratic access, you'd see quick reform, but they can afford to pee on everyone. Their kid will go to snobby private 10.000$ per month school anyway, making them best buds with the rest of future elite, eliminating need to care for literally anything else.

[madd0ct0r]

Oh, yes, it isn't the same - you could have find a noble or two that actually believed their propaganda and worked for the good of the state. Today, we have 'greed is good' creed and part of brainwashed masses honestly believing taxing oh so poor superrich is going to mildly inconvenience them, oh noes

Warren Buffet?