02-19-2017, 08:04 AM
My suspicions:
1. Those elites are not the nicest of people. They are what they are because they are greedy and rapacious; they keep the doors shut tight to people of talent and ability (thus, 'brilliant young man -- why don't you become a governor for my kids?). They expect undemanding deference of the proles. Isolated from the rest of humanity through their exclusive networks, they never need show empathy even if they might 'slum' in popular trends if they seem a bit fun.
If some people find ways to create wealth outside themselves, they usually find ways to squelch or co-opt it.
But they have their squabbles, mostly on dividing what economic opportunity can make people rich (monopoly power in business, cronyism, institutional power, and even outright crime), and when they can no longer get high returns from sweating and bleeding the proles that they exploit, they then turn upon each other.
2. They have command of the resources, so they can commit them to wars against foreign elites. There's nothing noble about this quasi-nobility. They can make war an offer too good to be true. A meat-grinder war for profits is an excuse for both raising taxes for all but themselves and squeezing non-elite consumption even further. Got overpopulation? There's nothing like a 'good war' to solve that problem.
3. They create a zero-sum economy.
4. They get reckless. Rarely wise enough to keep well-enough alone, they insist on getting even more.
1. Those elites are not the nicest of people. They are what they are because they are greedy and rapacious; they keep the doors shut tight to people of talent and ability (thus, 'brilliant young man -- why don't you become a governor for my kids?). They expect undemanding deference of the proles. Isolated from the rest of humanity through their exclusive networks, they never need show empathy even if they might 'slum' in popular trends if they seem a bit fun.
If some people find ways to create wealth outside themselves, they usually find ways to squelch or co-opt it.
But they have their squabbles, mostly on dividing what economic opportunity can make people rich (monopoly power in business, cronyism, institutional power, and even outright crime), and when they can no longer get high returns from sweating and bleeding the proles that they exploit, they then turn upon each other.
2. They have command of the resources, so they can commit them to wars against foreign elites. There's nothing noble about this quasi-nobility. They can make war an offer too good to be true. A meat-grinder war for profits is an excuse for both raising taxes for all but themselves and squeezing non-elite consumption even further. Got overpopulation? There's nothing like a 'good war' to solve that problem.
3. They create a zero-sum economy.
4. They get reckless. Rarely wise enough to keep well-enough alone, they insist on getting even more.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.