When We Are No Longer Needed: Emerging Elites, Tech Trillionaires and the Decline of Democracy

Comments

• the_q@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Without a bottom there can be no top.

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• Asafum@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I know it’s a bit cliche, but seriously even though this article is full of important insights it can literally be distilled into: Capitalist greed.

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• ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  There is a very good reason for the super rich to support the rule of law: it protects their own wealth and power. Even if they may want to be aristocrats in a highly stratified society like, for example, 19th century Britain rather than a modern democratic welfare state, they don’t stand to benefit from the transition to a modern autocracy. 19th century Britain was very much a nation of laws where the government would protect the rights and property of the super rich whereas modern autocrats quickly co-opt them into personal lenders whose well-being is entirely at the mercy of the autocrat.

  Thus, while some super rich individuals may support populist autocracy either due to idiosyncratic personal beliefs or short-term political expediency, transitioning to it is not in the best interest of the super rich as a class. Rule of law isn’t the same thing as democracy but I don’t see a global movement towards rule of law without democracy - the two are in the present day apparently inextricable.

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