If you look at previous eras of great wealth inequality such as the French revolution or the events leading up to the New Deal, the working classes were desperate enough to rise up. Either through force, or through sufficient threat of force they brought about changes that restored some balance to the system.

Nowdays, particularly in America, there is enough wealth to go around such that nobody is really that desperate. The masses are sufficiently pacified, but not so secure that they get funny ideas or opt to drop out and become hippies. We've got them exactly where we want them. So long as no substantial portion of the population goes hungry for more than 3 days everything is cool.

There's other things that have been working well. The ongoing threat of terrorism, black people, and mass surveillance keeps people in their place. Replacing mainstreet with wal-mart, increasing secularism, and the killing off of local media outlets with the internet is very useful for destroying community cohesiveness. It all helps to cultivate the perception that if everything goes to hell, you are alone in the universe and no one will help you. Unless some unknown unkown emerges to throw this all out of balance, there won't be any meaningful pushback, and the 99% will continue to serve us as a natural resource to be exploited.

Sure they can. Their weapon is the media instead of bullets. They just have to convince at least half of them the British policies benefit them. Plus provide them with guns. They'll shoot the other half for the British. Just like Democrat vs Republican politics and media in the U.S.. Nation can't win if it's divided and fighting each other over the actions of elites who they continue to fund and vote in. ;)

... And yet Gandhi was right. Those 100,000 British men failed and India is today the world's largest democracy.

He was right and wrong. He was right that 100,000 British men couldn't use lead with obviously-bad situation to control India. He was wrong given small numbers of men used a careful combo of military, money, and media to control U.S., Britain, and India. Currently, India mainly serves as cheap labor to support money-making operations in U.S., Britain, and other countries.

Gandhi was ultimately wrong: original exploitation was simply using tactics without psychological acceptance today's tactics have.

But in the case of India, didn't they try the other way and it didn't work for them, so they decided to go on the way of liberal economic reforms, while still adapting patent law to their unique circumstances(which i fully support) ?

You'd have to be more specific. I haven't studied India's history that much. I just know the result of globalization have been a fraction of a few countries' populations get rich essentially doing nothing while most population produces that wealth. And some countries almost totally do that for benefit of others. India appears to be one of those countries. So, it's in a modern form of economic slavery to rich, imperialist countries that now use capitalist tactics instead of bullets.

I'd still be interested in whatever historical points or patent differences you're talking about. I'm also assuming you're Indian as well?

Not Indian, Israeli.

Patent differences i'm talking about: The justified way India doesn't follow the western law on pharma patents.

Historical point: Up until relatively recently,India did have a closed economy, but did a lot to open their economy to foreign trade and investment(for example in the past you couldn't open a foreign subsidiary in India, Now there's even Amazon in India).

As for capitalistic tactics etc, that's definetly true. Just look at how much of the important contributions to silicon valley came from Indian people, both brain-drained and outsourced.

"Not Indian, Israeli."

Cool. Always like to see you all in security or legal discussions as you have interesting perspectives. :)

"Patent differences i'm talking about: The justified way India doesn't follow the western law on pharma patents."

I didn't realize they did that. I love that as I want serious changes to pharma patents here. It's basically legalized murder and unacceptable given what U.S. top causes of death are. So, I guess they did resist in some key ways. :)

"Up until relatively recently,India did have a closed economy, but did a lot to open their economy to foreign trade and investment"

Even the U.S. was isolationist for a while. It usually fails as both capitalists and consumers want the benefits of international trade. That opens them up to concessions. From there, we look at how they fair in ratio of benefit to their country vs to foreign countries. Germany, South Korea, Japan, and China seem to be examples of winners that ensure trade is very positive for them vs major countries. India seems to be one of the losers but has potential that's untapped.

"Just look at how much of the important contributions to silicon valley came from Indian people, both brain-drained and outsourced."

I actually don't know how many did outside smart people being hired at Google, etc to build key techs. Most of the groundbreaking stuff was American with VC or defense funding. Lots of improvements and experimental stuff (eg small players) involved foreigners. Big companies like IBM have their R&D in Israel, China, whatever brain-draining the crap out of them. So, it seems like a mix to me.

I guess what I'm getting at is that American innovators often got things started, becomes stagnant a bit, and then they start boosting it with foreign innovators. Other times, it's foreign innovators straight up making a contribution either here or over there. That gets monetized somehow by big players either through feature parity or acquisition.

Same, always a pleasure to to discuss stuff with you, you usually bring a lot of depth.

>> I actually don't know how many did outside smart people being hired at Google, ...

Leaving aside the entrepreneur(and the excessive hero worship around them), it's clear that startup companies highly depend on high quality employees. And the stats: Asian tech workers in Santa Clara are 50%[1].

Other stats: around 20% of US scientists and engineering are Foreign born. International students earn more than half of advanced STEM degrees in the U.S(and are probably behind half the university research). And what about second generation foreigners ?

And what about startups ? most of the successful startups in my country, which is known for startup quality, are bought before they can grow into to full form employing thousands.

And let's not forget - the effects are not linear - it's about ecosystems and power laws, things building on top of each other.

>> Germany, South Korea, Japan, and China seem to be examples of winners that ensure trade is very positive for them vs major countries. India seems to be one of the losers but has potential that's untapped.

Usually such growth path was through manufacturing, but there's some data from india hinting that china and manufacturing don't offer that path anymore, which is pretty worrying.

The election is looking like it will come down to Trump v. Sanders. Both of whom were the LAST choice of the "elite" who supposedly are pulling all the puppet strings.

I don't know how you can look at the democratic primary an think it looks like Sanders will be the nominee.

>Trump v. Sanders

Why do you think this?