{"id":61062,"date":"2012-09-04T16:09:50","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T20:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=61062"},"modified":"2012-10-02T09:14:18","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T13:14:18","slug":"the-revolt-of-the-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/the-revolt-of-the-rich\/","title":{"rendered":"The Revolt of the Rich"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the Republican Party’s national convention in Tampa has concluded and the Democrats begin theirs, we are approaching in theatrical terms, the “arc” of the political season. The moment of the play before it moves to its conclusion on election night in November. I found this article from The American Conservative<\/strong> through a diary recommending it at Daily Kos,<\/a> a liberal website. Funny how reflective members from both sides of the political aisle are drawing the same conclusion — that there’s a revolution out there, but not necessarily of the masses. This revolution is not a sudden overthrow but a long, persistent advance of the super-rich who regard themselves as above politics, nation-states, and the rest of us. A good read, and a reminder of what’s at stake in 2012.–fb<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong>The Revolt of the Rich <\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

by Mike Lofgren<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end of the Cold War many writers predicted the decline of the traditional nation-state. Some looked at the demise of the Soviet Union and foresaw the territorial state breaking up into statelets of different ethnic, religious, or economic compositions. This happened in the Balkans, the former Czechoslovakia, and Sudan. Others predicted a weakening of the state due to the rise of Fourth Generation warfare and the inability of national armies to adapt to it. The quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan lend credence to that theory. There have been numerous books about globalization and how it would eliminate borders. But I am unaware of a well-developed theory from that time about how the super-rich and the corporations they run would secede from the nation state.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
One-room schoolhouse, Sonoma County, CA, ca. 1900.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I do not mean secession by physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens from time to time\u2014for example, Erik Prince, who was born into a fortune, is related to the even bigger Amway fortune, and made yet another fortune as CEO of the mercenary-for-hire firm Blackwater, moved his company (renamed Xe) to the United Arab Emirates in 2011. What I mean by secession is a withdrawal into enclaves, an internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well being except as a place to extract loot.<\/p>\n

Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension\u2014and viable public transportation doesn\u2019t even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call and a chartered plane to get to the Mayo Clinic, why worry about Medicare?<\/p>\n

Being in the country but not of it is what gives the contemporary American super-rich their quality of being abstracted and clueless. Perhaps that explains why Mitt Romney\u2019s regular-guy anecdotes always seem a bit strained. I discussed this with a radio host who recounted a story about Robert Rubin, former secretary of the Treasury as well as an executive at Goldman Sachs and CitiGroup. Rubin was being chauffeured through Manhattan to reach some event whose attendees consisted of the Great and the Good such as himself. Along the way he encountered a traffic jam, and on arriving to his event\u2014late\u2014he complained to a city functionary with the power to look into it. \u201cWhere was the jam?\u201d asked the functionary. Rubin, who had lived most of his life in Manhattan, a place of east-west numbered streets and north-south avenues, couldn\u2019t tell him. The super-rich who determine our political arrangements apparently inhabit another, more refined dimension.<\/p>\n

The full article is here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that the Republican Party’s national convention in Tampa has concluded and the Democrats begin theirs, we are approaching in theatrical terms, the “arc” of the political season. The moment of the play before it moves to its conclusion on election night in November. I found this article from The American Conservative through a diary … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}