[onlooker]

I ask this because I think all of us are well aware that governments and in the background Corporations seem so totally enmeshed with greed and power plays that they seem incapable of operating in any way for the greater good of humanity and its future. It certainly appears that not until drastic consequences hit the more wealthier regions will any type of positive reaction be evident. This is so because as we have discussed humans in the 20th and so far in the 21st century are like spoiled children used to living in a world tailor made for wants and expectations. As we now seem to be leaving this comfortable stasis or catacomb can our institutions of power show beneficial leadership to prepare for the onslaught to come or will they be ever more intransigent to accept a radical change of course?
I will say one thing about this, that far the highest perches very wealthy and influential people own much and make world affecting decisions so perhaps the question should be can these people be redeemed or must they be eliminated/demoted to proceed on?

[americandream]

Redeemed from what and to what? Its like asking of a chief in a cannibal kingdom with access to the best bits of the corpse, can the chief be redeemed, and from what and to what.

[onlooker]

Interesting reply AD. Perhaps it sheds light as to the answer to my question. Neither the power structures nor those who sit on top of them can be redeemed until the entire society decides to change course. In your analogy the redeeming is for everyone including the leaders to decide not to practice cannibalism. In our case not to practice world destroying hyper capitalism. That is the redemption it may not save us physically but maybe spiritually who knows.

[americandream]

Interesting reply AD. Perhaps it sheds light as to the answer to my question. Neither the power structures nor those who sit on top of them can be redeemed until the entire society decides to change course. In your analogy the redeeming is for everyone including the leaders to decide not to practice cannibalism. In our case not to practice world destroying hyper capitalism. That is the redemption it may not save us physically but maybe spiritually who knows.

History has determined that a conscious species must evolve into a rational collectivism via capitalism (and its globalising effects). Only when we are fully conscientised as a species will we naturally transition. In the meantime, all we can look forward to is an entrenchment of these social relations worldwide which includes the destruction of Islam and all religions accompanied by the consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few. The working class (all those who live by the the sale of their labour including the middle class) will become more and more alienated, isolated, family will break down, labour will become transient and subject to extreme compliance in the job sphere and home ownership will make way for a rental economy as consumerism devastates the budgets of all working class homes with a steep rise in debt. The working class has a very bleak future of unremitting toil, isolation, and utter dejection, accompanied by the added risk of climate breakdown. This is the price we pay for our consciousness, a strange quirk in an evolution that has thrown us a curved ball. On the bright side, we are no longer subject to the arbitrary brutality of tribal or feudal societies.

[americandream]

The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.

The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

[onlooker]

Great stuff AD. Yes I would agree that we, humans have progressed from our prior conditions with Capitalism and the bourgeoisie. In all spheres mankind has made progression but at too steep a price AD. I say this because the price as been to make the Earth part of this cold calculation and selfish interest. The price as also been to create a profoundly unequal and unjust world. So it is ironic but this seems to be the case. That is why I firmly believe that if we were given the opportunity our next step in our evolution would be Anarchism. As defined: Anarchism is a political philosophy that advocates self-governed societies based on voluntary institutions. Mankind has left behind the prism and prison of religious and feudal despotism and arbitrariness. In its place we have normalized the material world as something explainable and malleable. Now, that mankind has this power to rationalize and be conscious of his intellect, we would be ready to self-govern. Self-governance being the final destination of as you say AD the "rational conscious" human. Alas, though the inherent characteristics of Capitalism went too far in its material and ultimately self absorbed narcissism. The power to create plenty, to accumulate and feel this power has proven too counterproductive. Greed and power lust woven into the very fabric of Capitalism as tangible manifestations and thus easily swaying mankind. So in essence our progression had the seed of our downfall within it all this time.

[americandream]

I prefer the term scientific socialism as it more eloquently captures the degree of consciousness necessary for an organic circularity (which in turn contempolates all the facets of reason such as freedom, appropriate structures and relations and of course, use of the means of production as only reason can contemplate) Its more a matter of the mind of man and the world of matter being in a state of equilibrium and all the necessary elements flowing from that as a consequence....an organic process and a state which can only follow the final stripping away of the veil of illusions. You are seeing glimmerings of this in the US with the spontaneous outrage at the actions of establishment but the discourse is occurring against the backdrop of an incomplete world still at tribal war with itself. Thus as with the founding of the US which was a revolutionary act which was quickly overwhelmed by the conditions at the time, this phase in American history is undergoing a similar fate. It is only after we have moved beyond the residue of our tribal past, we then enter the phase of unfettered free trade and the conditions necessary for synthesis. Any attempts to skip stages in the historic process will fail for the lack of the necessary consciousness. We may never succeed as a species with climate rumbling in the background but that is the necessary road dictated by history which stand astride the organic world like the proverbial Leviathan.

[Cog]

Is this another one of those threads where the OP wants to kill rich people or throw them in prison but is too afraid to come out and say it?

This is what you really wanted to say:

My life is a wreck and its all the rich people's fault. I want them punished and dragged through the street until they are properly humiliated. I want their money distributed to me so I can continue my slothful ways. After I have taken all their money, I want them killed.

See how much better my version is?

[onlooker]

Class warfare is coming Cog, careful you might be on the wrong side of that equation.

[Cog]

Class warfare is coming Cog, careful you might be on the wrong side of that equation.

I'm sure whatever side you are on will be the wrong one.

Your side hates guns, how is this going to work out for you exactly? I might remind you that your socialist wet dream Bernie Sanders is going to lose to one of the biggest globalists around Hillary Clinton. Once you are of no use to her, the far left will be discarded until the next election.

[onlooker]

"Your side hates guns, how is this going to work out for you exactly?"
Your puny guns won't stand a snowballs chance in hell against tanks, jet planes etc. Speaking of being discarded your rightie friends in politics and their paymasters will discard you right leaning rabble as soon as the going gets really tough. Or are you under the illusion that you are on their side. Haha. You are about as much on their side as Lenin or Marx. Face it we are all just rabble and pawns to be used by the elites as is their want. Many are waking up to that and that is the one thing that scares them. When the many rise, the few will fall. Join the many Cog,cause that is going to be the winning side. We do not need guns to defeat them, just the wrath of the righteous. The rulers will find that they cannot rule the uncooperative.

[ennui2]

must they be eliminated

What exactly is that supposed to mean? Are you wishing for some sort of mass execution of some kind?

the wrath of the righteous.

Read Animal Farm again. The masses turn out to be not so righteous after all. I mean, their answer right now is Donald Trump.

The history of civilization is a game of whack-a-mole. Everyone thinks that with each regime change things will get better, but usually it doesn't, or it does, but it doesn't last. It's just this constant churn with no endpoint because, well, power corrupts and, unlike what Anne Frank said, people are selfish, tribal creatures.

[onlooker]

Not mass execution Ennui, when only 50 people or so sit at the very top of the perch of power. I did not advocate,I posed the question theoretically. When millions or perhaps more accurately billions are being denied a decent living or control of their lives to live as the Constitution says with a chance for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", then I would say the huge masses are righteous in their grievances are wish for change.

[ROCKMAN]

I find it illuminating that neither the left nor right side of this debate acknowledges that both those in power and those not have identical motivations. The only differrernce between those two groups is who's on top and who isn't. Swap groups and just the names change...not the dynamics.There is no mass of good hearted folks ready to rule the world "for the common good". Power does have a tendency to corrupt regardless of the initial rhetoric. Being poor doesn't make one moral...it just limits how immoral one can act. LOL.

[Newfie]

Try to run a committee with 50 people let alone 50 people with huge egos.

[Cog]

Nothing would change if the 50 most powerful and rich people disappeared tomorrow. There are 50 more lusting to take their place. Their companies, which they control, would continue to operate.

The concept that life would be more fair and we would have more freedom, if only the rich and powerful were eliminated, is not something that has been explained to me in a satisfactory way.

[onlooker]

I do not discount what you Rock and Cog are saying about inherent characteristics that make humans interchangeable. Yet none of us should discount the potential of humans to forge a better world based on the more virtuous features we possess. Simply because we have never had a continuous state of affairs on this planet to attest to these virtues we have does not negate their existence within us. Look at your loyalty to your family and your group. Amid all the history of turmoil we have had, we have shone in being loyal, caring and sacrificial for our group and loved ones. Now, if we can be such for "our" group then, what must be done is extend our group to include us all, the human group or family. I do not know exactly what our future holds but I know that whatever world may exist 50 years or so from now, mankind should and must reach its potential of being a benign species or else the future is to me at least worthless to contemplate and much less to live in.

[americandream]

I find it illuminating that neither the left nor right side of this debate acknowledges that both those in power and those not have identical motivations. The only differrernce between those two groups is who's on top and who isn't. Swap groups and just the names change...not the dynamics.There is no mass of good hearted folks ready to rule the world "for the common good". Power does have a tendency to corrupt regardless of the initial rhetoric. Being poor doesn't make one moral...it just limits how immoral one can act. LOL.

A good explanation of objective history. The cave dwelling prehistoric man can no more be a philathropist nor can the modern day worker in capitalism. Neither systems contemplates that nor will any system that follows. The rational man as history contemplates, is objective however. He sees and knows her.

[ennui2]

I did not advocate,I posed the question theoretically.

Based on the tone of your postings, you really do seem to subscribe to the idea that there's a short-list of rich people that you feel should be either assassinated or at least imprisoned and their riches redistributed. The problem with that is, where do you draw the line? There's always going to be haves and have nots. And the have nots will always be envious of the haves or accuse the haves of gaming the system at their expense.

none of us should discount the potential of humans to forge a better world based on the more virtuous features we possess.

I think that ship sailed somewhere in the late 60s.

[americandream]

Saying that the have nots will always envy the haves is like saying, in the republic of arsescratching, the ones with automated arsescratchers are envied. Pretty basic stuff that really adds nothing to a discourse on why each system has one or other result.