Like the line from Titanic when the extravagantly wealthy Calvert is trying to buy himself onto a lifeboat – "Your money can't save you any more than it can save me."
The west is like this today (apart from the countries that built themselves up on colonial empires of theft) in part also to a lot of violent and sometimes deadly revolts against the ruling class.
US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, etc. all saw bloody strikes and protests, in order to get fair living conditions. Noting was ever given out of pure generosity, without a fight.
That's...barely a thing at all.
> US, UK, France, Italy, etc.
If those are your examples, you really don't need the “apart from...”
The wealth inequality was absolutely insane. It's not like thanks to colonialism, everyone living in the UK victorian era could afford to prop their feet up, live off free stuff taken from the colonies, and never have to work a day in their lives. Quite the contrary, they were working long hours living in poor conditions.
The working class only saw lifestyle improvements when they fought back for them.
During the industrial revolution life expectancy in UK was among the lowest in the world for the poorest industrial workers. Inequality was incredibly high.
Painting people in a country as being all benefiting (or being harmed) from an external factor is very misleading
> Historically, that's when a revolution or regime-change happens. This is something the richest of the rich have either forgotten or mistakenly think they'll be insulated from.
Revolutions aren't always successful. If the rich control the state by corrupting democratic institutions and remove from the peasantry the tools to pursue "politics with other means," they might actually get away with a transition to something like feudalism.
There have been many periods of high inequality and stagnation in history broken up by war. Since war is not a preferable catalyst in this day and age, we have to opt for organized labor.
Excuse me, but where have you been in the past 3 months?
I doubt it.
1) That's why the west are pushing for forms of government surveillance disguised as Covid tracking, or anti-terrorist surveillance, or anti-child-porn surveillance, or whatever flavor of the month the current "enemy" happens to be, to make sure they can see it coming and stamp out any potential public dissidence before it hits the elites.
2) Unlike the French or Soviet revolutions from a couple of hundred years ago, which saw the deaths of the elites, the elites of today can travel to remote places using planes to distance themselves from the angry mobs, and rule their empires remotely using the internet. Huge game changers compared to the past.
Revolution isn't just spontaneous popular protests leading to regime change. It can also be further slides authoritarianism.
In the French revolution, which took place in Paris, the elites all lived outside the city. The royal family lived in Versailles. No one went into the city for any day to day business. When the revolution happened, the nobility fled, and they directed their armies to seize and starve the city. They were using all their wealth and power to quell and flee. Much good that did them.
Putting the present elite at an even stronger disadvantage, though, is that Western billionaires only have power because the people allow them to -- land, money, stocks, it's all owned on paper. If a revolution is successful, there is no reason a billionaire's wealth or power couldn't be wiped away at the swipe of a pen. Elon Musk does not have enough of a private army nor his wealth in gold to defend his claim to anything.
https://www.indiatimes.com/amp/technology/news/sergey-brin-s...
People like Musk are not the world's ruling elites though. He and other tech billionaires are the richest people who's wealth is in public companies, so that's why they get all the visibility and media attention, but they're not the richest people in absolute terms, nor are they ruling elites, quite far from them.
The ruling elites, the richest and most power people in the world, are the likes of the British monarchy, Vladimir Putin, Saudi family, and other such monarchs and dictators who basically own nearly entire countries in both land and valuable resources and also control militaries to defend their assets and their position. They never appear in Forbes riches people because, unlike tech billionaires, most of their wealth is highly secretive and well hidden from the rabble, and for good reason too.
Putin is estimated to be worth way more than Musk. And he also has an army at his disposal. Same with the Saudi family, they have an army and their wealth could probably make Musk look like he should be put on social security.
In principle you are right, they don't have armies per se. But don't let the "everyman" persona put on by Musk or even Buffett fool you.
Billionaires must have extensive (and probably armed) security operations protecting them and their families. It would be irrational for them not to have that. Agreed that they might not be able to prevent their factories or other industrial assets from being seized (Just ask the oligarchs who fell afoul of Putin and fled).
The behavior when it doesn't break is actually more informative, though. At first, all aspects of the music experience exponential growth. Once clipping sets in, the growth of the loudest / highest gain frequencies continues, but now at the expense of every other frequency. Eventually one frequency wins and the system devolves into the distorted shriek of a single fundamental frequency and its harmonics.
The idea here is that we can tell where we are between "free growth" vs "starting to clip" by looking to see how well the rising tide is fulfilling its promise of floating all boats.
How long will this continue though? This can't be sustainable forever.
At one point, you won't have any money to buy any assets if your wages are barely covering your food and shelter, and so we'll go back to feudalism where only those few with inherited wealth owned assets and everyone else was a slave for life.