COVID-19 is the climax to this 4T

[Eric the Green]

(04-26-2020, 02:34 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-26-2020, 10:12 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-25-2020, 04:51 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(04-25-2020, 12:34 PM)Isoko Wrote: Now in my eyes and many others, that would be comparing yourself to being a prophet in the Bible.

This may look different to atheists than to Christians.  For some reason I think Eric is atheist, though I'm not sure why I think that.

For us atheists, biblical prophets made hit and miss predictions, just like modern day prognosticators.

Eric is neither theist nor atheist.  He's spiritual, but not religious.

Eric has claimed to be a spiritual person but often failed to prove it to me many times.

Spiritual, but not saintly?

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-27-2020, 11:39 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: That's all true, but are you sure that a regeneracy is only "when a new administration fully implements the progressive agenda?" Can't it be when a movement emerges among the people that will lead toward this?

It could be defined in other ways.  Depending on the historian, what he is most interested in, what he looks at, you could define that action with economic, military, popular, political or other markers.  Is it Lexington and Concord or the Declaration of Independence?  Is it the Harper’s Ferry raid, the election of Lincoln or Fort Sumpter?  Is it the stock market crash or FDR’s hundred days?  Was it the Four Freedoms speech that declared without partisanship the US was committed or was it Pearl Harbor?

Somewhere along the line, the bulk of the people get committed to the new ideals and a tidal wave of unity overcomes the formerly formidable opposition.  There is little they can do but drink tea and cuss at That Man in the White House.  Oh, in each crisis war there is a rough time when that opposition will present cut and run as the best option.  They never did cut and run in the Revolution, the Civil War or World War II.

This time around, when did the tidal wave become inevitable?  Could you point at the identification of the virus in Wuhan, or must we wait patiently for Inauguration Day in 2021?  The support for taking action with isolation and fighting the virus isn’t really waiting.  The various governors are leading coalitions of convenience on both coasts and the midwest.  The new values are beginning their sweep, but are not working at the federal level yet.

It’s a valid question, but if you have to point at a particular moment I wind up looking at when the Buchanan / Hoover / Trump type of leader that demonstrates how poorly the old ideals work lets go of the reins of power.

(My spell checker must be a Tolkein fan.  It suggested that he should let go of the rings of power.  I’m not sure if the bad presidents are that bad!)

[pbrower2a]

(04-27-2020, 11:39 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: That's all true, but are you sure that a regeneracy is only "when a new administration fully implements the progressive agenda?" Can't it be when a movement emerges among the people that will lead toward this?

In view of the disaster that is Donald Trump and the coattails to which right-wing Republicans have attached themselves as he takes them into political quicksand... the new progressive politics begin in January 2021. Americans will be able to relax some from the economic effects of COVID-19,  and people associated with Joe Biden will get to ride an improving economy except perhaps for securities markets. I expect tax laws to change to tax 'unearned income' more heavily as they did in the 1930's. Green agenda? We are ready.

A progressive tax is the best friend of small businesses that find more niches in which they do not have to compete with giant, monopolistic, bureaucratic, vertically-integrated entities that squeeze out small business in eras of low taxes. As it is a small family business that turns $150,000 a year if incorporated pays as high a tax rate as Exxon-Mobil. $150,000 sounds like big money until you realize that $25,000 per family member is not that much for the work done by each member of a six-person household.

[pbrower2a]

We are going to see many institutions go under. We can't simply pick the best of rural life (fewer restrictions on life) and urban life if we live in crowded conditions. Americans often act as if they can still live on a farm. To put it as crudely as possible, nobody cares if your dog poops in a ditch by the side of a corn field, but thousands are offended if your dog does such in Times Square. We cannot enjoy the intellectual laziness of proletarian life (OK, plenty of smart people who actually have sophisticated minds do unskilled or semi-skilled work because we have too many well-educated people for the jobs that require sophisticated educations) while enjoying the cornucopia of entertainment that we have; we need to judge its worthiness if we are to control what goes into our minds instead of letting someone manipulate our minds. Don't fool yourself; what goes into your mind will define you as much as what you eat will determine your physical health. We can get full employment if we accept starvation wages and brutal employment or we can have dignity on the job but no certainty of holding a job. We can have economic freedom and real choice only if we are willing to pay high retail to get good service and selection. The ability of Wal*Mart to undercut competitors that include mom-and-pop business has stuck us with Wal*Mart choices that aren't all that good.

I told you that restaurants are likely to go under unless they are above average or go the fast-food route. Many restaurants have been getting away with cooking with microwaves. I can do that too, quickly and without paying a tip because food manufacturers can supply us with easily-cooked entrees. Airlines will need to retrofit their air circulation to ensure that microorganisms don't make people sick before people start flying again.

We don't know how long COVID-19 will last and how many people it will kill. If we do nothing about it it will die off only when it runs out of people to infect. If it kills enough people (it looks like a bigger monstrosity than AIDS already) it will make real estate and commuter costs much lower. It will also devastate companies that rely upon mass markets and communities that depend upon housing nearly fully-occupied. Once-vibrant cities could come to resemble Detroit in having plenty of vacant lots. Most vulnerable will be outlying suburbs that would not exist unless population is as high as it is today and have gotten away with having nothing to do but shop there. Just think what that does to property owners and the tax collector. Just look at Detroit or Youngstown.

But even without such human losses, on-line purchases will become more the norm. Retailers have long depended upon impulse shoppers without which they would go under. If people don't go to the store then they can't see something cute, excite their curiosity, get strokes that suggest "hey, fellow -- buy this and show what an astute shopper you are" and take it to the checkout counter, pull out a card, and leave. I've been taken in in relatively good times with the "show yourself an astute shopper" and much clutter and a depleted bank account to show for it.

We are at the end of the line for material shortages being a cause for making above-average profits for meeting needs. I know enough that being a late-adapter is one way in which to avoid paying too much (but not too late as one ends up with an obsolete technology of little use). We may also be at the end of the line for being smarter than our machines. Thus as capitalism can no longer create greater prosperity for the masses through greater productivity (just think of that: it may be ironic that capitalism has led us faster to Marx' postulated end of economic history as Communism before "socialist" regimes failed to achieve such) So we are approaching both the dreaded Singularity of the technological apocalypse of some science-fiction writers just as we approach the end of the relevance of capitalist command-and-control.

For many the secret of happiness is stupidity. With stupidity one can be perfectly happy doing a mindless job and devouring a great quantity of schlock entertainment. That well fits command-and-control in the workplace that causes smart people to chafe unless they are the commanders and controllers (and I am not talking of the well-paid accounting job) and two hundred channels of cable or satellite TV or streaming video. Folks, you have only so much time in life, and you may be unable to escape a horrible job as a means of survival (although we need do less work to live as materially well as people who thought a forty-hour workweek a godsend), but we need to develop the wisdom with which to decide what is fit for our minds and bodies.

I had a cousin who died five years ago... he weighed 450 pounds after (according to his family members) dropping out of high school before graduating, seemingly never reading a book after his schooling was over, and as a typical trip to a fast-food place supersizing his meal and then doubling it. That's a big hamburger, a big helping of fries, and and an over-sized soft drink. I rarely spoke to him because he had nothing to say and he could never relate to anything that I could talk about. I can talk to people without discussing theories of politics and history, science and technology, art, or classical music. He died at age 48 leaving a widow and two overweight children behind. Yes, he was setting an example. It is clear what was going into his belly, and it was bad for him. What was going into his mind? It's likely not worth discussing.

We will need more formal education just to deal with the reality of a cornucopia of offerings ranging from schlock to sublimity.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-27-2020, 10:32 PM)taramarie Wrote: Oh wow they have changed over there since i voluntarily left. I am very shocked to hear of this.

Rags seems a lot mellower.  He will let any opinion be voiced, any controversy be bantered about.  I used to think he did little, but then looked up a user whose name begin in ‘m’, and ran into a lot of folks who he had banned with the leading letter in their name ‘m’.  Quite the list.

[Isoko]

To confer what pbrower said,

It is becoming clear to me then ever that the people themselves do not really want change. Sure, they vote for Trump, Brexit and other populist uprisings in protest but when it comes to building a better tomorrow, they simply do not have an interest in doing so. Nature, beauty, true diversity, all is shoved under the bus to make way for me, me, me.

I envision the future to be like one big global city of all the masses living under it, microchipped and quite content with the ever a stagnant quality of life, having one or two children and just accepting some form of servitude. As long as they get a crappy packaged holiday somewhere to see a few ruins, they will be happy.

I only support nationalism as a sort of counter balance to this future in order to promote prosperity and freedom elsewhere. But I must confess, I do wonder how long such institutions can last and if the global state of control is all but inevitable...

You know, I noticed how little traction of support both individuals on the Alt Left and Right actually get. It seems the masses do not care and it is all about getting on with their lives.

Even in Russia, we have a youth movement who actually want to be like the West. It's all about money and being like the West. Not all fall into this trap but some do, not realising that the future of the West is done soulless bugman apartment.

Maybe there is hope for the future but knowing people, I strongly doubt it. It only takes collapses for them to change and those are very dark times to live in that people will do their best to cling to the old.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-28-2020, 08:21 AM)Isoko Wrote: It is becoming clear to me then ever that the people themselves do not really want change. Sure, they vote for Trump, Brexit and other populist uprisings in protest but when it comes to building a better tomorrow, they simply do not have an interest in doing so. Nature, beauty, true diversity, all is shoved under the bus to make way for me, me, me.

That fits the quiet materialistic turnings, the high and the unravelling.  Even then, the active turnings, the crisis and the awakening, are defined by briefer bursts of crisis war, religious revivals or social movements.  Most of the quieter times, a lot of the people, you get materialism and stay the course defining what is going on.  Yes, many of the people prefer it that way.

This does not mean there are not flaws in society that should be pointed out by the prophets, or transformations that used to require crisis war to solve satisfactorily.  Progress comes when problems become too hard to endure.  You can’t leave them lingering on forever.  A lot of people might try.  They will get into materialism and money and close their eyes to the problems, be they kings or slaves or capitalist robber barons.  The GI generation was good at seeing and solving problems, but even they went idle after their last great burst in the awakening.

I do see a progressive time as having the potential to come again.  Living with a disregard for science, ignoring the problems that the scientists promise are coming, can’t go on forever.  Trump is proving that a fact free deliberate ignorance of problems is a dead end.  

We will see.

[Isoko]

Hi Bob,

To be honest, as I have argued before, what else can you really progress too? In America, progressive politics could work there when it comes to ideas such as free healthcare, free education, etc but anymore social progress and you are going down a very dark neo-sodom and Gomorrah road. What society needs is for social values to start to shift again back to the right, focusing on family values and preserving marriages, etc. That is a huge hole that needs to be fixed.

As for Europe, however, progressive values are of no use here. They have everything they want and they simply cannot sustain the system any longer due to forces from outside and within. In Europe's case, they need to take a sharp turn to the right and I think that the end of this 4T and beginning of the next 1T there is going to symbolise. More focus on national economies.

As for global warming, you have the big problem of the BRICs. They want their good quality of life and they want what the West has had. The calls to change will fall upon deaf ears. Like I told readers, Russians are not bothered about climate change and actually feel they can profit from it. If the planet is warmer, it means better economic activity for them. Lots of food to grow, more use for land in Siberia. So the West can moan all it wants but they will not listen.

[Warren Dew]

(04-28-2020, 08:21 AM)Isoko Wrote: It is becoming clear to me then ever that the people themselves do not really want change. Sure, they vote for Trump, Brexit and other populist uprisings in protest but when it comes to building a better tomorrow, they simply do not have an interest in doing so. Nature, beauty, true diversity, all is shoved under the bus to make way for me, me, me.

I disagree.  The populists do want change:  they want to share in the fruits of success that had been going entirely to the elites since the early 1970s.

The issue is that the elites don't want to give up their privileged position.  The elites don't want change, since that would mean they might not stay on top.  They may want to extract the last drop of blood from the workers, but they're not going to risk change to do that.

Since the elites have control of the press and the bureaucracy, they can force a stalemate, at least until the populists get so fed out violence breaks out.

[Isoko]

Depends on the people though Warren. If they can survive and live within their means despite having a decline in their quality of life, then the Populists will remain that group which gets protest votes but not actually truly into power. People will stick to the same old because of pensions and benefits. If that crashes, it is the 1930s all over again.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-28-2020, 11:07 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: Since the elites have control of the press and the bureaucracy, they can force a stalemate, at least until the populists get so fed out violence breaks out.

The coastal press is more in line with the progressives, though it is not like the conservatives are lacking for a voice.  Also, violence is so Industrial Age unless you are talking about the sort of protests that came in the 1960s awakening.

[Warren Dew]

(04-28-2020, 11:37 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-28-2020, 11:07 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: Since the elites have control of the press and the bureaucracy, they can force a stalemate, at least until the populists get so fed out violence breaks out.

The coastal press is more in line with the progressives, though it is not like the conservatives are lacking for a voice.  Also, violence is so Industrial Age unless you are talking about the sort of protests that came in the 1960s awakening.

The elites are not uniformly on the left.  The coastal press is leftist, but Fox is controlled by the conservative elites, not by the populists on the right.

Violence is a constant throughout history.  That said, it might take different forms.  Is purposely spreading Covid-19 a form of violence?  That's starting to be done, albeit in a limited way.  If the populists can kill off everyone over 70, they'll have taken care of the majority of the elites.

[David Horn]

(04-28-2020, 11:07 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(04-28-2020, 08:21 AM)Isoko Wrote: It is becoming clear to me then ever that the people themselves do not really want change. Sure, they vote for Trump, Brexit and other populist uprisings in protest but when it comes to building a better tomorrow, they simply do not have an interest in doing so. Nature, beauty, true diversity, all is shoved under the bus to make way for me, me, me.

I disagree.  The populists do want change:  they want to share in the fruits of success that had been going entirely to the elites since the early 1970s.

The issue is that the elites don't want to give up their privileged position.  The elites don't want change, since that would mean they might not stay on top.  They may want to extract the last drop of blood from the workers, but they're not going to risk change to do that.

Since the elites have control of the press and the bureaucracy, they can force a stalemate, at least until the populists get so fed out violence breaks out.

I'm in agreement with Warren for a change, but can't see how backing a sleazeball rich guy gets anyone closer to equity.  Moving that way requires prying the power and control of the wealth production out of exclusive hands, and that requires the power to make it happen.  Dismantling government is the exact opposite of the that. You can't win by standing in the street and yelling. The PTB don't care.  Government is the only possible counterbalance.  


Look at history.  The Gilded Age happened at the point that government was both weak and bought. When FDR changed the rules, the balance improved. It never got to even, though.  Once capital got a slight advantage, things went downhill fast.  The arrival of the Boomer human wave made labor weak, and thank the Saudis for the rest.

[Isoko]

Not sure about the U.S but in Europe, the Populists generally have a love to their homelands. It's not necessarily about a huge power grab for power's sake but more loyalty to the old country. It is an alien concept to Americans but it is a common mindset in Europe. Out of the two, Europe is always going to be the right wing case.

[Warren Dew]

(04-28-2020, 01:10 PM)Isoko Wrote: Not sure about the U.S but in Europe, the Populists generally have a love to their homelands. It's not necessarily about a huge power grab for power's sake but more loyalty to the old country. It is an alien concept to Americans but it is a common mindset in Europe. Out of the two, Europe is always going to be the right wing case.

It's not an alien concept to Americans.  The populists here are the ones who embrace a "God and country" view of America.

The technorati reject that view, but in Europe, the technorati are the ones who reject nationalism for a cosmopolitan, EU centric viewpoint.

[Warren Dew]

(04-28-2020, 12:35 PM)David Horn Wrote: Look at history.

When I look at history, I see concentration of power reaching a maximum at the beginning of each Crisis period, with the crisis war destroying some of the elites, making room for upward mobility again.  By 1850, field slaves were heavily concentrated on large plantations, and the industrial powers of the North were also concentrated; destruction of the South and elimination of slavery facilitated upward mobility first by carpetbaggers and then by the rest of the Gilded.  Concentration of wealth and power again peaked around 1930 - there's plenty of statistical evidence for this - and things stayed stagnant until World War Two destroyed Europe and again made room for growth.  Most recently, concentration of wealth and power again reached a peak around 2000, resulting in the current stagnancy.  One way or another, some of that is again going to be destroyed, again making room for others to grow.

[pbrower2a]

(04-28-2020, 02:45 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(04-28-2020, 12:35 PM)David Horn Wrote: Look at history.

When I look at history, I see concentration of power reaching a maximum at the beginning of each Crisis period, with the crisis war destroying some of the elites, making room for upward mobility again.  By 1850, field slaves were heavily concentrated on large plantations, and the industrial powers of the North were also concentrated; destruction of the South and elimination of slavery facilitated upward mobility first by carpetbaggers and then by the rest of the Gilded.  Concentration of wealth and power again peaked around 1930 - there's plenty of statistical evidence for this - and things stayed stagnant until World War Two destroyed Europe and again made room for growth.  Most recently, concentration of wealth and power again reached a peak around 2000, resulting in the current stagnancy.  One way or another, some of that is again going to be destroyed, again making room for others to grow.

The extreme concentration of wealth (and wealth and political power go together) at the 3T/4T cusp creates far more hardship and distress than prosperity, In the 3T. Trickle-down ideologies  become acceptable for what they promise: in return for more glaring inequality and more demanding management the economy will produce so much wealth that the added inequality will be worth it. People accept privatization and monopolization as 'economic discipline' by rooting out 'destructive' competition. At the end the methods that allegedly promise unprecedented wealth culminate in a financial bubble that devours capital more than it creates it. Paper prophets disintegrate, and the economic elites suddenly claim to be unaccountable for the failure. 

I am old enough to remember people who were adults in the 1920's, and although they considered the early 1920's horrible, they had no nostalgia for the 1920's except for youth. I suppose many of us would like to have our youth back so that we could enjoy it more fully or not make the same mistakes. (Oh, would I do many things differently!) But given the choice between the late 1930's and the late 1940's they saw the late 1930's as better in practically every way. Of course these people were farmers or factory workers, and things got better for them with farm subsidies or union wages as opposed to what preceded. OK. Gershwin wrote some music that well stands the test of time... but all in all the 1920's were a slum of a decade. Prohibition did not make life more fun' it made drinking more costly, dangerous, and troublesome. The perverse combination of self-righteousness and cruelty gave America the fascistic 1915 Klan that we can all be glad imploded before it had a chance to do genocide and war as did causes with similar viciousness and bigotry. Economic distress that began in rural areas ensured that any semblance of a consumer boom would implode.  

A 4T begins or culminates with political leadership not up to the challenge. This one began with such and will probably approach its end with such. People who thought Dubya awful recognize Trump as far worse. 
.

[David Horn]

(04-28-2020, 02:45 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(04-28-2020, 12:35 PM)David Horn Wrote: Look at history.

When I look at history, I see concentration of power reaching a maximum at the beginning of each Crisis period, with the crisis war destroying some of the elites, making room for upward mobility again.  By 1850, field slaves were heavily concentrated on large plantations, and the industrial powers of the North were also concentrated; destruction of the South and elimination of slavery facilitated upward mobility first by carpetbaggers and then by the rest of the Gilded.  Concentration of wealth and power again peaked around 1930 - there's plenty of statistical evidence for this - and things stayed stagnant until World War Two destroyed Europe and again made room for growth.  Most recently, concentration of wealth and power again reached a peak around 2000, resulting in the current stagnancy.  One way or another, some of that is again going to be destroyed, again making room for others to grow.

I don't buy your version of events in total, but let's say you're right.  The imbalance today is much worse than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic started, and the imbalance is now threatening our social stability.  Except, there will be no crisis war this time, so alternatives need to be pursued. The only viable alternatives I see are political: tax the rich heavily -- the 1950s is a good benchmark.  Reinstitute mandatory universal public service.  Right now, the elite of the elite never even see, to say nothing of interacting with, anyone not part of their class.  That needs to change.  And for heavens sake, start a real program to do what the Chinese have already done: build all new infrastructure.

Rectifying the power imbalance of rural v. urban is harder.  It may require that urban America refuse to pay for their rural cousins unless power is rebalanced.  It will be messy.  I'll be missing that one, by simple demographics.  It will take decades, and I'm short of decades to wait.

[Bob Butler 54]

Nitpick.  The United States didn’t originally have a federal power to regulate the economy.  They didn’t need it early.  To some extent in the Gilded Age, the major rich bankers tried to intercede.  By the time FDR came around, the problems with the boom and bust economy got too big.  The federals were the only ones with enough power and certainly there was a need to regulate the economy.

FDR decided that gaining this power by constitutional amendment would take too long and might never happen.  Thus, there was an argument with the Supreme Court that he eventually mostly won.  The government assumed a power to regulate the economy.  The president, court, Congress, robber barons and people approved of the result.  A change in how the government worked was necessary, but they got it though legislation from the bench rather than constitutional amendment.

We perhaps paid for it when various courts went wild with legislation from the bench, but that always seemed to happen.  Note how the Jim Crow court nullified the Bill of Rights.

I agree that changing the imbalance of rural against urban is hard.  It would be extremely difficult to get rid of the slavery compromises from the bench, even assuming a progressive court, which isn’t likely in the short term.

[pbrower2a]

(04-29-2020, 11:27 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Nitpick.  The United States didn’t originally have a federal power to regulate the economy.  They didn’t need it early.  To some extent in the Gilded Age, the major rich bankers tried to intercede.  By the time FDR came around, the problems with the boom and bust economy got too big.  The federals were the only ones with enough power and certainly there was a need to regulate the economy.

FDR decided that gaining this power by constitutional amendment would take too long and might never happen.  Thus, there was an argument with the Supreme Court that he eventually mostly won.  The government assumed a power to regulate the economy.  The president, court, Congress, robber barons and people approved of the result.  A change in how the government worked was necessary, but they got it though legislation from the bench rather than constitutional amendment.

In the 1930's the Robber Barons were wise enough to know that if things got appreciably worse there might be a revolution of the sort that had happened a few years earlier in Russia. Unlike the situation in Germany, where Nazis ended up doing the bidding of German tycoons, financiers, and big land owners America had no powerful fascist group (it is a good thing that the 1915 Klan disintegrated when it did!) to overthrow a weak democratic government and install a totalitarian right-wing regime. Note well that the 1915 Klan had much the same hatreds as the German Nazi Party and a similar proclivity to violence -- and genteel support until a prominent Klan leader disgraced himself with a murder. 

What good is property if the Commies take it away?      

Quote:We perhaps paid for it when various courts went wild with legislation from the bench, but that always seemed to happen.  Note how the Jim Crow court nullified the Bill of Rights.

America was then a terribly-flawed country with at best an inchoate democracy. It was democratic in some places fairly reliably and democratic for whites and (in accordance with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo), Mexican-Americans. Blacks? Asians? Native Americans? Forget it! 

Human rights exist as a rule only where people have a meaningful vote. That rules out single-Party systems like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Ba'athist Iraq and Syria, Apartheid-era South Africa, or the Jim Crow South -- let alone places such as Pinochet's Chile, Libya under Qaddafi, or contemporary Saudi Arabia. The state that gives you no meaningful choice in voting can murder you. 

Quote:I agree that changing the imbalance of rural against urban is hard.  It would be extremely difficult to get rid of the slavery compromises from the bench, even assuming a progressive court, which isn’t likely in the short term.

Rural America has been better shielded from the nastiness of economic reality of exorbitant rents, cost of government through high taxes, and high commute costs from distant suburbs than has urban America. One might live better as a farm laborer in rural Michigan than as a barber in New York City or Los Angeles -- such is an expression of the costs. (Of course one would be better off as a barber than as a farm laborer in rural Michigan -- at least before COVID-19 messed up so much).

The most rapacious and demanding interests in America have put off necessary reforms to our economic system almost as long as they can. To protect themselves against such reforms they will need to find people to impose a fascistic regime upon America, the sort of regime that makes America a place that wise people leave if they can --- a nightmare of brutal management, abysmal wages, and economic insecurity; a mindless world that will steadily debase any mind, and in which conscience or being part of the wrong religion can be a ticket to an all-American version of a gulag or a KZ-lager, if not summary execution or murder following torture. 

Given a choice, our privileged elites will sacrifice the rights of everyone else to protect their sybaritic indulgence. Such is the character of every materialistic elite that has ever existed.