Skip Navigation

Just curious but are we heading towards an "eat the rich" society?

While it's very unlikely that someone has a definitive answer, this question popped into my head after the assassination of the UHC CEO and it's been bothering me that I can't shake off this feeling that more is likely to happen (maybe not in higher frequency but potential).

Usually I could provide counter-arguments to myself in a realism/(should I buy apples or oranges comparison) kind-of sense but this one I feel more unsure about.

I wish I had more diverse exp in systems analysis as these kinds of questions that linger in my head really irritates my OCD brain as I just want to know what's the most likely answer.

141 comments
  • It's certainly part of the catabolic stage in the system's decay. Due to many reasons, both at the input side and the "drowning in waste" side (example: GHGs waste causing climate destabilization), growth is going to falter which means that the "sharing" strategy of the rich, of the oligarchs, is going to stop working. You may know it as "grow the pie" (instead of "share the pie"). The rich get richer, the rest get poorer, and there are going to be a lot of poor people. That means a lot of desperate people and a lot of people with nothing left to lose.

    What you have to watch out for is perhaps two strategies that can stop this:

    1. Scapegoating: vulnerable minorities and more. The rich of a certain ethnicity may become the scapegoats, instead of .... you know, ALL of that class. This would be a misdirection of attention.
    2. Jingoism, chauvinism and various forms of ultra-nationalism. This would be a misdirection of violence... instead of "punching up", it becomes "punching the foreign threat", which means war.
    3. Combined 1 & 2. It's usually called fascism.

    Something to print:

    On a related note, I really liked the recent season of "Arcane" (both seasons are great). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11126994/

  • Just curious but are we heading towards an "eat the rich" society?

    I guess we should be, but that's just my personal opinion.

    Realistically, no. The people have clearly expressed how dumb they are and what they desire in the November election. They want dumb Republicans, they get asshole CEOs. I don't see it any other way.

    Honestly, I believe voting is the best way to bring change about a society that wants to change. It's just that I have given up the thought that the US wants to change in the direction that I would go. So no, it's not gonna happen.

    • They voted for Trump, but not because they actually wanted a bunch of asshole CEOs in power. The electorate wanted real transformative change; they're looking for anyone who can offer even a hope of some bold transformative change. The only party offering real change right now is the Republicans. Democrats just want to offer a few piddly means-tested tax credits like they usually do, while doing absolutely nothing to actually rein in corporate wealth and power. Kamala's flagship domestic policy was a $25k home tax credit that only a sliver of the populace would be eligible for; and it would only serve to bid up housing prices.

      Like it or not, the Republicans did actually have answers for people. They aren't good or noble answers, but they were answers. Democrats were too chickenshit to run on a platform of "CEOS are ruining your life, we need to come down like the hammer of God on the greedy oligarchs." The Republicans in turn ran on a platform of, "the reason your life sucks is a bunch of DEI programs are putting unqualified people ahead of you. We'll end that. Illegal immigrants are taking your job opportunities, and we'll deport them all. House prices are too high, so we'll deport 20 million immigrants and lower them!"

      Those are abominable answers to the problems we face, but they actually had an answer, however evil and ultimately unproductive. Yes, obviously deporting millions of immigrants won't actually help people, but it doesn't matter. The Republicans actually had an answer to the question, "what transformative change will you do to improve the lives of Americans?"

      Democrats had no answer. And for that, they lost.

      People are hungry for dramatic change. They feel the system is rigged, and they are right. Democrats were too cowardly to take up that message and push for change against the corporate class, and that left Republicans as the only party offering any real change.

      You don't need to radically transform society to want change; the country already clearly wants change. The fundamental problem is the only ones offering change are the Republicans.

      • Thank you for taking the patience to put this into words so nicely! I really appreciate your perspective. Maybe I was being too rude calling Republicans "dumb", I apologize. I guess I'm just as angry as many other people at seeing the proposed Republican plans (especially "slashing public spending" a.k.a. reducing social welfare) and seeing people actually vote for that.

        Yeah, people in the US want change. I'm not sure what would be a productive and viable proposal that doesn't completely fuck up the country. I'm European and have a non-interference policy for myself when it comes to the internals of the US. In other words, I don't want to meddle too much with what's going on in the US.

    • This is the only correct answer. Billionaires already control the masses.

  • Look to history for some answers.

    The Denver Post had a opinion piece that talked about how America has seen something like this before.

    The Gilded Age, the tumultuous period between roughly 1870 and 1900, was also a time of rapid technological change, of mass immigration, of spectacular wealth and enormous inequality. The era got its name from a Mark Twain novel: gilded, rather than golden, to signify a thin, shiny surface layer. Below it lay the corruption and greed that engulfed the country after the Civil War.

    The era survives in the public imagination through still resonant names, including J.P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt; through their mansions, which now greet awestruck tourists; and through TV shows with extravagant interiors and lavish gowns. Less well remembered is the brutality that underlay that wealth — the tens of thousands of workers, by some calculations, who lost their lives to industrial accidents, or the bloody repercussions they met when they tried to organize for better working conditions.

    Also less well remembered is the intensity of political violence that erupted. The vast inequities of the era fueled political movements that targeted corporate titans, politicians, judges and others for violence. In 1892, an anarchist tried to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick after a drawn-out conflict between Pinkerton security guards and workers. In 1901, an anarchist sympathizer assassinated President William McKinley. And so on.

    As historian Jon Grinspan wrote about the years between 1865 and 1915, “the nation experienced one impeachment, two presidential elections ‘won’ by the loser of the popular vote and three presidential assassinations.” And neither political party, he added, seemed “capable of tackling the systemic issues disrupting Americans’ lives.” No, not an identical situation, but the description does resonate with how a great many people feel about the direction of the country today.

    It’s not hard to see how, during the Gilded Age, armed political resistance could find many eager recruits and even more numerous sympathetic observers. And it’s not hard to imagine how the United States could enter another such cycle.

  • I’m honestly just glad it brought the left and the right together! 🥰Give more CEOs bunnies, get more unity? Working class solidarity, ya’ll. 🥳

  • I doubt it. There's a good chance that we will see copycat killers. That's a well known phenomenon, but it is not a change in society.

    High-profile events can catalyze changes. Violence has been committed. A person died. That creates a sense of urgency. Americans have discovered that there is a broad consensus that something ought to be done about health care. We'll see.

    But I do not see any appetite for a societal change. Americans look at individuals, not at systemic factors. The USA has, by far, the highest incarceration rate in the world. It costs the taxpayer a lot of money to feed and house all those people, not to mention that the rest of society misses out on all the productive labor they could do. The US likes to punish individuals for perceived wrong-doing, but it does not look at systemic factors.

    US society now wants more bad guy CEOs punished. That's not a change and it will not lead to a change. People aren't even thinking about how the law could be changed to punish these bad guys, or what they personally could do alone or by collective action. They are waiting for heroes.

    Americans want V (for Vendetta) to save them while they watch the show. Many think that Elon Musk is Ironman. That's part of the malaise.

    People want individuals to take care of things and so individuals need the power to do so. Well, billionaires are people who have been given the power to take care of business (excuse the pun). And if they don't do it right, it's because they are greedy or have some other individual flaw.

  • No.

    The killing of the CEO was a one-off event.

    There would need to be readily apparent will to revolt, or a slow buildup of tit-for-tat escalating action/reaction between have-not and the rich…. More killings and active attacks, more police trying to crush any protest or anyone rebelling, harsher and harsher punishment for resistance or protest, and a wealthy class protecting themselves as much as possible while telling everyone (most likely through the press and government they own) how bad it would be for everyone were they to be killed or the system disrupted.

  • No its just one event. The first time I've seen this on Lemmy and I can't blame people for not being sad about it.

    Anything else would be Stockholm syndrome.

141 comments