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  • HeyMoon : fascism, antisemitism,
  • rDramaHistorian : Who reads these? I'm genuinely more concerned about the intended audience than Impassionata

AN ARGUMENT AGAINST VIOLENT UPRISING

Surely no one these days would contest the notion that the rich are a parasitic and obsolete elite functioning only to drain our society at a crucial turning point in our history.

At previous times the death of the rich and their children would be a foregone conclusion at the hands of a starving angry mob. One can understand the natural impetus for such a course of action, as of a river overflowing its banks and sweeping away all in its path, without agreeing with the moral implications or endorsing violence.

But make no mistake: the rich, who are entrusted with the wealth of the nation, have squandered it. And a balance must be paid, not in cash.

Therefore as a more sensible and civilized alternative to the anger which simmers quietly despite the best efforts of the rich to remove it from the public square -- I have maintained a collection, it's not hard to see the taboo broken if you watch carefully -- let us suggest the following theory of capitalism and its relation to the State.

:#marseythinkorino:

Capitalism is the application of money-as-energy to the activity of the nation-state. The Baby Boomer generation was engaged in an ideological conflict with a purportedly anti-capitalist polity, and the trauma of this conflict locked them in an ideological death spiral. Unable to conceive of any reform to the functioning of the United States as anything other than Marxism or Communism, they became beholden to ideas of fair markets, fair play, and corporate freedom to such a bizarre and extreme extent that they became unable to recognize the collapse of their society into a mirror of the Communist dictatorships: the elite formed a Party which constituted an oligarchy.

Now oligarchy is not without its benefits. Some amount of centralized decision-making authority is necessary for the State to function.

But for the same reason that the Media is always necessarily an appendage of the State (because the Media must report on what People desire to hear and Americans never met a war they didn't like), Capital is also an extension of the State. When Capital becomes divorced from this essential function, it believes that it controls the country when it has merely been entrusted with decision-making authority over some portion of its resources.

If they make bad decisions their decision-making authority should and must be revoked.

Formally this comes as a seizure of their assets. Anyone with more than 10 million in assets simply shouldn't have it anymore.

The alternative is war upon the rich. Not because we want it, but because it's simply in the nature of the mass human beast. I do not advocate for violence simply by observing its inevitability.

What does the government do with those assets once they've been seized? A variety of redistributive measures may be considered, but I merely ask you to agree to the necessity of the seizure.

Remember, the State doesn't have to be fair. The State must employ the fact of its violence strategically to solve the problems faced by the People who, in a Democratic Republic, constitute its purpose.

YOUR RICHES DO NOT BELONG TO YOU

YOU ARE BUT A MANIFESTATION OF THE NEEDS OF THE STATE

AND IF YOU FAIL TO MEET THOSE NEEDS

YOUR RICHES SHOULD BE STRIPPED FROM YOU.

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I knew this would be an Impassionata longpost just from the title.

I don't agree with this $10 million cap because it doesn't allow people to build resource-intensive companies. Your typical microchip fabrication foundry is like a half-billion dollar investment, and we're going to need a lot of these fab plants in the near future as nation-states start to realize that warfare in the Digital Age is very different to all the forms of warfare that preceded it. How do you expect to get industrialists who can afford to build these kinds of facilities if you strip away their money? You think the government can successfully create a supersterile manufacturing facility?!? That's laughable. The more sophisticated technology gets, the more money people need to leverage that technology effectively.

Other than that, you're 100% correct here. Money is simply the latest and most recent evolution of power, and power is always doled out in proportion to your usefulness to the tribe. If your power ever exceeds your usefulness, you'll be killed by the rest of the tribe, and you deserve to be. At the same time, the tribe has an obligation to reward you in direct proportion to your usefulness. If you're not being adequately incentivized by your tribe for the benefits that you bring them, they cannot count on your loyalty. Power and loyalty go hand in hand: if you're not given one, you have no obligation to supply the other. As above, so below.

Sadly, because money is such an abstract concept, a lot of wealthy people see it as an entitlement - something that they earned and are entitled to, rather than an easily convertible form of power which can be doled out or stripped away at the discretion of the nation-state. They forget that ultimately, all of our lives belong to the State.

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Jesse what the frick are you talking about??

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