Just another Reality-based bubble in the foam of the multiverse.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

doubleplusungood thoughtcrime

Xenophon notes:

The “lower –upper-class” and the Billionaire upper class are heating up for a global war for feudal territory and serfs. The geography of networks of dominion are subtly shifting away from the perceptible skirmishes of nation states and are inscribing themselves in the ubiquitous, pervasive infrastructure of global commerce.


He points to an older post where he references this CNN note last October that has a strange through-the-looking-glass feel about it:

...Not long ago an investment banker worth millions told me that he wasn't in his line of work for the money. "If I was doing this for the money," he said, with no trace of irony, "I'd be at a hedge fund." What to say? Only on a small plot of real estate in lower Manhattan at the dawn of the 21st century could such a statement be remotely fathomable. That it is suggests how debauched our ruling class has become.

The widening chasm between rich and poor may well threaten our democracy. Yet if that banker's lament staggers your brain as it did mine, you're on your way to seeing why America's income gap is arguably less likely to spark a retro fight between proletarians and capitalists than a war between what I call the "lower upper class" and the ultrarich.

Here's my outlandish theory: that economic resentment at the bottom of the top 1 percent of America's income distribution is the new wild card in public life. Ordinary workers won't rise up against ultras because they take it as given that "the rich get richer."

But the hopes and dreams of today's educated class are based on the idea that market capitalism is a meritocracy. The unreachable success of the superrich shreds those dreams...

Lower uppers are doctors, accountants, engineers, lawyers. At companies they're mostly executives above the rank of VP but below the CEO. Their comrades include well-fed members of the media (and even Fortune columnists who earn their living as consultants).

Lower uppers are professionals who by dint of schooling, hard work and luck are living better than 99 percent of the humans who have ever walked the planet. They're also people who can't help but notice how many folks with credentials like theirs are living in Gatsby-esque splendor they'll never enjoy.

This stings. If people no smarter or better than you are making ten or 50 or 100 million dollars in a single year while you're working yourself ragged to earn a million or two - or, God forbid, $400,000 - then something must be wrong...

There's only so much of this a smart, vocal elite can take before the seams burst - and a bilious reaction against unmerited privilege starts oozing from every pore. Especially when it's clear to lower uppers that many ultras are reaping the rewards of rigged systems: CEOs who preside over tumbling stock prices, hedge fund managers who barely beat the market.

It may seem far-fetched to think a revolt against extreme inequality will be led by posh professionals. But the conversations above suggest there's a potent political opening for a "comeuppance agenda."

Eliot Spitzer, an ultra by birth (like F.D.R.), has shown the power of turning against the sleazy self-dealing of his class. Once Spitzer's crusades against greed sweep him into the New York governor's mansion next month, imitators may follow. Shame as a strategy to constrain avarice may come back into fashion.

Like I said, it's just a theory. It could be sour grapes. But if I were in this for the money, I'd bet there was something to it.


Shame as a strategy to constrain avarice. How Democratic of them. Spitzer did win, incidently. But in an age where the chief opponent of the Rethuglicans in the Senate has the MGM Grand Casinos as a major legal donor, one wonders about the effectiveness of such a strategy. It feels much more like a strategery to me.

Which brings me around to my thinking about 9-11-01. What is the connection?


On 9-11 one group of lesser billionaire Saudi Royals made war on the economic base of King Fahd, a greater billionaire.

There was a lot of smoke and mirrors about the motivations behind the loss of the Twin Towers (+1, WTC7). You've read them before on this site maybe. But the biggest motivation was as always taking the money and running. You will notice a few American billionaires profited quite nicely from the result.

Taking the money and running is the best explanation for the war in Iraq. The reluctance to stop it certainly is best explained by this motivation. They might write letters, those earnest Democrats in Congress, but the cash must flow regardless.

Just try to tell people the War on Terra is a diversion to separate the rubes from their money. It will get you in trouble in polite company every time.



[thanks to scarshapedstar for the title!]

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