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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats
Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires
You probably dont know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industriesfrom itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways Im no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans cant even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what Im talking about. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my familys business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enoughand that time wasnt far offpeople were going to shop online like crazy. Goodbye, Caldor. And Filenes. And Borders. And on and on.
Realizing that, seeing over the horizon a little faster than the next guy, was the strategic part of my success. The lucky part was that I had two friends, both immensely talented, who also saw a lot of potential in the web. One was a guy youve probably never heard of named Jeff Tauber, and the other was a fellow named Jeff Bezos. I was so excited by the potential of the web that I told both Jeffs that I wanted to invest in whatever they launched, big time. It just happened that the second JeffBezoscalled me back first to take up my investment offer. So I helped underwrite his tiny start-up bookseller. The other Jeff started a web department store called Cybershop, but at a time when trust in Internet sales was still low, it was too early for his high-end online idea; people just werent yet ready to buy expensive goods without personally checking them out (unlike a basic commodity like books, which dont vary in qualityBezos great insight). Cybershop didnt make it, just another dot-com bust. Amazon did somewhat better. Now I own a very large yacht.
But lets speak frankly to each other. Im not the smartest guy youve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. Im not technical at allI cant write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?
I see pitchforks.
At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the countrythe 99.99 percentis lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isnt that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It wont last.
If we dont do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didnt eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. Its not if, its when.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#ixzz3cWImA4wX
daleanime
(17,796 posts)immoderate
(20,885 posts)--imm
kairos12
(12,862 posts)PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)Madmiddle
(459 posts)Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)KansDem
(28,498 posts)Let's see. the tar we could get from Koch Industries, and the feather? The feathers? Hmmm...
Ah, yes! The feather we could get from Nick himself!
How, delicious! Tar and feather the plutocrats with their own products!
They certainly couldn't complain about that!
calimary
(81,269 posts)"...I see pitchforks."
That could be the new version of that movie slogan - "I see dead people". From the movie "The Sixth Sense."
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)calimary
(81,269 posts)MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)Oligarchs ignore him at their own peril.
Paka
(2,760 posts)One of the rare 1% that really gets it. His TED talks are wonderful.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)People like this principled man will get caught up in the chaos and violence if this problem isn't fixed peacefully...and they probably won't survive. That's a damn shame.
deafskeptic
(463 posts)cer7711
(502 posts)Last edited Tue Jun 9, 2015, 01:53 AM - Edit history (4)
Seriously? Seriously.
A plutocratic oligarch warns his own class that revolution is coming, and the rank-and-file of this board (bored?) can't even work up the energy to click the rec box.
You know what? Perhaps the writer is wrong. Perhaps learned helplessness, willful stupidity and outright ignorance amongst the general populace (to say nothing of technological distractions: Spotify! Snap-chat! VR!) are such that the American people will simply continue their downward spiral into irrelevance and historical obscurity. They seem perfectly willing to accept this new world order with nary a peep of protest: "Gosh, yes, master/mistress; I LOVE worker insecurity! Pay me less and tax me more; hollow out the country and squander the financial and moral capital of this country while I devote my energies to catching my favorite late-night talk show and deciding which fast-food chain's dollar-menu I'll graze upon tomorrow. Remember: Jesus saves!"
Of course, there are also the pampered, cloistered, inside-the-beltway types who simply cannot countenance or fathom any talk of revolution on this board. (Deeming all such revolutionary talk to be an incitement to violence, when in fact a revolutionary consciousness knows better than most that the state holds all the trump cards when it comes to exercising deadly force.)
Meanwhile, the 1% grow ever richer. Elsewhere: We rape Iraqi children in front of their mothers (the recordings exist, info about these atrocities--and others-- can easily be found if you care enough to investigate); US police officers routinely empty their Glock's entire 18-round magazine into hapless criminals; damn near half the voting populace continues to pull the lever for the ^&%$#! republi-khans while ever-growing numbers of the citizenry have grown so cynical, disaffected and angry (there's far more than simple disinterest or apathy going on out here in the heartland, folks) that they don't even bother showing up at the polls anymore.
End rant.
Except for this brief postscript: We're running out of water, clean air, a stable climate. The average American grows more impoverished, debt-and-disease ridden, and illiterate by the day. We're running out of TIME!
People like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are our last hope. Speaking truth to power. Re-energizing a disaffected electorate. Taking the fight directly to the banksters and their toadies/enablers/professional apologists. At least with Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders, full-throated, articulate, passionate resistance to oligarchic evil will be written into the record--for however long there remains a world hospitable enough to host a future generation of literate citizenry.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to catch up on my Rahm Emanuel reading . . .
Fritz Walter
(4,291 posts)I was out sharpening my pitchfork.
Sure leaving the tines dull and rusty would inflict more pain and Tetanus, but they could get bent in the process, reducing their effectiveness and durability.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
calimary
(81,269 posts)Glad you're here! I've thought about this for a long time and I find myself wondering - WILL this happen at some point? Or have the masses become so beaten-down that the "it's no use" syndrome takes over? Because there's been absolutely NO justice, NO accountability, NO restraint for these pirates and vultures and vampires, it helps to fantasize about some extreme remedy like this. I find myself wondering - WHEN might this actually get sparked? Or will it EVER?
Sometimes I find myself in despair - at how well the other side of the aisle has plotted this out. They went about this very seriously, very systematically, very resolutely, and all under the radar - while OUR side, naive and unsuspecting, napped. The Lewis Powell Memo seems to have attempted to think of everything. Link's in my sig line. That's why I think WE need more devious thinkers on our side. People who understand the psychology of the enemy and are equally acutely aware of what happens when our side assumes the problem's been solved, and drops its guard. Our side tends to assume that once the work is done or the goal is accomplished, that's that and the job's done and we can all go home, drop our weapons, and relax. WRONG!!!!!! WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!
NEVER forget the words of the (YES I know he's fictional) wizard Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter series. He was always warning Harry Potter of two things:
1) "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!!!!"
and
2) You've GOT to KNOW!!!!!!!"
Also known as...
1) DO NOT EVER drop your guard, Part One. The enemy is never fully vanquished. They will NEVER give up. Whether the Supreme Court, the Congress, the White House, the governor's office, or state legislature, or ANY other entity goes against them. They'll find away around it or die trying. If they can't get their way through the folks in the regular channels, then change the channels. And/Or change the people in there. Put your OWN cronies and CONS and crappers in there instead. They're always looking for a back door left open, or a guard slumped over dozing off. The same strategy as - if you can't get them to vote for you, then the answer is do everything possible to make sure they can't vote. You CANNOT AFFORD to lay down your arms. You CANNOT AFFORD to say it's over and call it quits and go home. Because the enemy's not gonna do that. So YOU CAN'T.
2) DO NOT EVER drop your guard, Part Two. Do not ever assume they aren't working like hell, in the shadows and behind closed doors, to destroy everything you built. STAY AWAKE AND AWARE and watch them. Keep watching them. Stay aware of what they're up to. Follow them closely. Listen to all those nice patriotic-sounding platitudes they say and be sure you can decipher it so you know what they REALLY mean. Don't ever take for granted that they might have either surrendered or seen the light and changed their minds. Some, of course, will. A few.
There will indeed be a few who are adult enough and still sufficiently connected to the world outside the insulated Bronze-Age CON bubble to open their eyes, finally, and stop believing the bullshit. But don't count on many of those materializing. Especially when that side of the aisle
A) is LOATHE to admit they're wrong or that they've made a mistake or that the world is changing and they need to change with it to survive rather than try to force the progress backward and the clock and calendar back several centuries (or several millennia) to suit their twisted, ill-informed, obsolete comfort levels;
and/or
B) they're imbued with the belief that God is on their side.
Fritz Walter
(4,291 posts)One of my favorite quotes from Mohandas K. Gandhi
Thank you for your thoughts and kind words, CaliMary. If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were my sister-in-law in Seattle; we frequently have this kind of discussion.
Of course, I'm being facetious about pitchforks, although history is replete with examples of what happens when the majority can no longer suffer the abuses from a privileged minority. The concept of an American Spring, however, is very appealing.
Hang in there!
appalachiablue
(41,136 posts)He rocks!
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Damansarajaya
(625 posts)octoberlib
(14,971 posts)I could read it over and over again.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)Thespian2
(2,741 posts)More pitchforks, Please....
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Somewhere else in their private jets.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,996 posts)But still relevant.
sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)Mbrow
(1,090 posts)Michigan-Arizona
(762 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)to home. We need to fight the Oligarchs like Goldman-Sachs.
deafskeptic
(463 posts)Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)joshcryer
(62,270 posts)But doing squat shit about it.
True Patriot Network was a fucking psychology attempt using "persuasion profiling" to convince voters to vote a certain way. Democrats lost in 2010.
"I'm not a bleeding heart liberal," says Hanauer. "I value you (in the 99%) because you're a future customer."
This is about maintaining the status quo through incremental changes that won't solve a damn thing. What is necessary is a basic income, but no one is talking about it and the richest are afraid to go there because they know that it makes them no longer the top .01%. The closest we've come if Warren Buffet talking about expanding EITC to more people and allowing for monthly payouts. But even that is a mediocre offering.
They're not about solving the inequality problem, they're about keeping the 99% consumers happy.
Rex
(65,616 posts)will come into this thread and poo poo on a zillionaire. And it will be people that make nothing compared to Mr. Zillionaire. Just living along with the lie that we still live in some kind of 'fair trade' system.
Reagan did it, and Poppy had a great time driving the nails in the coffin. Republicans are the worst stewards of government, in history.
This wouldn't have happened under a constant Democratic leadership.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)When the middle class has to struggle to hard to make it and the poor are excluded not just from having what they need but from opportunity even for their children, society breaks down.
Yes. In Los Angeles, a cell phone is pretty affordable, but housing is not.
Median rental for a one bedroom in Los Angeles is $1,470 per month.
Median rental for a two-bedroom in Los Angeles is $1,945 per month.
http://www.zilpy.com/US/Los_Angeles_Metro?_escaped_fragment_=#!
Those are may 2015 numbers.
At the federal minimum wage of $7.25 you would have to work more than 62 hours per week for 4.3 weeks to pay a month's rent of $1,945, and you would have nothing left over for anything else. At $10 per hour and 4.3 weeks per month, I think you could cut your work hours down to maybe 45 per week. So a couple with two children would have to have apply one minimum wage salary plus just to cover rent for the median two-bedroom apartment.
The problem is that people who have a lot of money are completely out of touch with the people who are earning minimum wage or even the salaries of teachers.
If your housing cost, your rent, is one third of your income, you have to have an income of $5835 per month or around $70,020 if you want to spend just one third of your income on housing. Now if you are also repaying student loans? You live with mom and dad or you leave Los Angeles I suppose. I'd like to hear from someone in Los Angeles who pays rent here to know what it is like. If you have a rent-controlled apartment you may be OK because you are paying on an old basis.
valerief
(53,235 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)The rents do rise annually but only by a certain percentage.Landlords can get out of rent control in various ways, and not all apartments are covered. I don't know that much about the system. The rent-controlled apartments aren't that cheap either in LA. I was horrified to learn how much my friend pays for a one-bedroom rent-controlled apartment. Over 1000 dollars per month. I suppose that the location and condition of the apartment determine the rent to some extent.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)It comes down to the perpetuation of supply side economics after decades of proof that it is counterproductive.
Bernie suggests raising the cap to make Social Security more sustainable.
The right's response is, "Don't raise the cap, privatize Social Security." Other right leaning Democrats and Republicans advocate raising the retirement age or adopting Chained CPI.
Bernie suggests we must remove the influence of money from the political process. The media behaves as if this is some wild idea from outer space. Yet by a large majority, the American people want the influence of money removed from the election process.
The effects of income inequality are often not readily apparent to the voter. They know things are real bad but they don't understand the reasons.
N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,728 posts)Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)Small disturbances can make it explode.
Hotler
(11,424 posts)Pitchforks and guillotines and some rock throwing if need be. The time is NOW to be in the streets by the hundreds of thousands and don't stop till the 1%ers are cowering in a corner asking for forgiveness. One of the biggest weapons we have as little people are our pocketbooks and wallets. shut the spending down and grind it to a halt. Sure the 1%ers are rich, but they rely on us to keep buying the shit and services. They have bills to pay just like us and when the money stops flowing in their creditors will start coming for them and start seizing their assets.
flobee1
(870 posts)And the sooner the better.
But, there has to at least be a plan or structure for what form of gov/economy comes next. Just leaving a void is not good, and THAT is what needs to happen RIGHT NOW. Get together with like minded people and talk about it. Talk about what comes next if capitalism dies this afternoon, this weekend, whenever.who steps up to take charge?
valerief
(53,235 posts)Glaisne
(515 posts)it's regulated through socialism. The most successful, stable, and happiest societies are mixed economies that are blends of regulated capitalism and democratic socialism. As the author states, highly unequal societies with very few very wealthy and very many very poor are unstable, miserable feudal police states or failed states. Control can be maintained for a while through various combinations of propaganda, globalization, force, fear, intimidation, fraud, corruption and false hope, but only for a while. In the end it comes crashing down. It has happened over and over again. All empires fall, always. Not if, when. Are we wise enough to heed the lessons of history and work towards a just, equitable and stable society?
Romulox
(25,960 posts)gosh, that's news to me...
Gothmog
(145,264 posts)RR2
(87 posts)their support of Rabid Gun Rights enthusiasts now?
Ted Cruz Requires Background Check Before Letting Supporters Shoot With Him
Source: Crooks & Liars
After the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, a bill expanding background checks nationwide which was championed by President Obama, was defeated. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) helped to lead the effort to defeat the bill in 2013.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Dedicating themselves, their lives, families, legacies and fortunes and entrusting all of our futures to the whims and desires of Wall St.
What one sows today, so many will reap tomorrow.
harun
(11,348 posts)Not to mention the Army, Air Force and Navy.
RR2
(87 posts)Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)...I sincerely doubt that all of the military would remain loyal. In fact, I have no doubt that the proportion of the military that would rebel would vary only slightly from that of the general population. Soldiers aren't automatons. They're people who are getting fucked over just as much as the rest of us. The military would fragment...
Doesn't matter, though. We've been transformed via Panem et Circenses (and some really effective propaganda about the sanctity of the "free market" from a people that once rose to throw off tyranny to one that just can't be bothered.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)and a myriad of takeovers from well-armed regimes just didn't happen.
harun
(11,348 posts)What the hell are you talking about?
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Just since WW II? How many regimes have we propped up with superior weapons?
How has all that worked out?
harun
(11,348 posts)Gotcha.
Yeah, agree. In the end it will be about hearts and minds.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)in most insurrections and wars the U.S. has been involved in since WW II. Glad to clear it up.
fadedrose
(10,044 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)reality based on historical knowledge and just plain common sense.
Damansarajaya
(625 posts)The plebians are immersed in debt, working two jobs, and just don't have time to do anything except come home exhausted and turn on Fox News.
Unions are dead. Government is a slave to the money class. Unemployment is high enough to keep people desperate but not so high that they are desperate enough to rebel.
The illusion of a real chance for overnight success keeps people just numb enough to not effect change.
The American cultural value of "individual freedom" held up as the most important right keeps people from working together for the "common good."
6chars
(3,967 posts)Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)...and our collective spinelessness.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)...who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that,
And this is not our fate.
So let us not talk falsely, now.
The hour is getting late'"
-- All Along the Watchtower, Bob Dylan
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Then they work on other countries middle classes...thanks to the TPP.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Fucking A. Are they getting it yet?
Rex
(65,616 posts)Normal people just do not realize how fucked the system is, they still believe the governing elite run the show and blame them for all the problems (like the millionaire mouthpieces in the M$M tell them to).
Sheeple by any other name.
No reason to yell any more broham...save your voice for when we are really going to need it during the revolution.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)We will have to meet up and make sure to do it together!
The blushing smiley has been disappeared.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)The GOP is dying, too.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)All he is doing is looking at what is and evaluating it in a common sense way.
Why is this so difficult for so many? Oh, that's right, greed is the most powerful and pernicious addiction there is.
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)Otherwise we get Germany in the 30s and we know what that led to.
blackspade
(10,056 posts)Better reach, and with a 3 ft cutting edge....
I guess I'm ready for the zombie apocalypse as well....
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)"Im not the smartest guy youve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. Im not technical at allI cant write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future."
He doesn't have that attitude that he is smarter and better and harder working than those of us who have not succeeded in life. Most of the uber-wealthy have a sense of their own self-worth that is out of proportion to reality.
I will also say that he obviously had enough money to invest heavily in Amazon when it was founded. This put him many rungs above us on the success ladder from the beginning....because even if most of us had known Bezos, and even if we would have seen to great potential in his idea, we would not have had the money to invest enough to become wealthy. Hanauer got a philosophy degree when he went to college---something that is laughed at today (and was then) if you ever want to actually make a living. He was already riding a wave, probably from birth. But yes, he did make great decisions, and yes, he does get it.
marym625
(17,997 posts)But I won't use it. President Sanders and the Democratic Congress will take care of things nicely within 4 years
Matariki
(18,775 posts)which is why the police have been increasingly militarized.
"You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising."
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Maybe, just maybe, there are other plutocrats who get it, and would kick some of their cash Bernie's way.
F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)He's still a plutocrat worth billions happily profiting off the mass suffering of others. Forgive me if I'm not impressed by his words.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)His 2012 (IIRC) TEDTalk on the topic was incredible.
They consider him a Noriel Roubini-esque doom-sayer. Sad, that.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)BKH70041
(961 posts)He makes these claims, but then does nothing to divest himself so as to not be a victim of the outrage? If you really believed this was going to happen, wouldn't you do what you could to make sure you would escape it by getting rid of the problem, i.e. no longer hang onto your wealth?
This is like a rich Roman citizen 2,000 years ago saying "You know, the Roman Empire won't last forever." Well, no kidding, dumbass.
What the people carrying the pitchforks don't realize is that there's a really strong chance 15 years after the uprising they'll get Napoleon.