Our Mad Aristos
“…In the past, ruling classes sought to protect the system that secured their coveted positions. But sometimes, as in the era before the French or Russian Revolutions, some in the ruling circles stopped believing in their religion, their traditions, and their state, only to be exiled, executed, or turned into what the Soviets called “former persons.”
Like our current elites, many French aristocrats lived dissolute lives but also supported revolutionary ideas which threatened “their own rights and even their existence,” as Alexis de Tocqueville noted. Today a large, even dominant portion of the wealthiest and most privileged parts of our society—including the heirs of nasty capitalist titans such as Henry Ford or John D. Rockefeller—are key funders of an increasingly anti-capitalist left. Others are still young tech billionaires and—increasingly—their discarded or former spouses.
This elite has arisen at a time when, as in France before 1789, inheritance is becoming ever more important as a vehicle for upward mobility, which is otherwise increasingly remote for most of the population. Home ownership among middle income Americans, for example, the primary means for asset accumulation for the non-rich, has dropped by over 8 percent in the past decade, while the wealthy have garnered the greatest gain from increased housing prices. American millennials are three times as likely as boomers to count on inheritance for their retirement. Among the youngest cohort, those ages 18 to 22, over 60 percent see inheritance as their primary source of sustenance as they age. . . .
The tech elite is increasingly more an object of fear than admiration. The Democrats, the party they fund, is shifting away from capitalism, a position particularly popular among younger party members. Already, more Democrats, the party they finance, favor socialism than capitalism. There’s even a growing socialist movement among woke—indoctrinated employees in Silicon Valley.
So in their endless search to prove their virtue, our masters fund a basic agenda opposed to both classical liberalism and capitalist enterprise. This is much what happened in the runup to the French Revolution, when many French aristocrats embraced polemics that threatened “their own rights and even their existence,” as Tocqueville noted. Watching Howard Schultz, a self-defined progressive capitalist, fight off a unionization drive recalls French aristocrats who supported radical ideas before losing their heads.
The next phase of class war may soon be upon us…”
