Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Ibon wrote:Well, the point should be that regardless of the system of government the elite have always self served their own interests. In time of tightening constraints we can assume this will become more and more the case. The middle class grew only because of the abundance that allowed opulence to spread down into the masses during the ascendancy of energy. In the decline this opulence will shrink back to the historical norm of a small elite once again. This seems pretty obvious.

If this macro trend is accurate then ones personal strategy for oneself and their children is to make yourself less dependent on the institutional structures that will exasperate this growing disparity. Reduce consumption, eliminate debt, increase your personal resourcefulness by learning skills, work on your emotional intelligence to be an integrated part of your community. These are all exactly the opposite of what consumption culture has taught us.

These adaptations to a shrinking middle class are not ideological. And they are not learned overnight. It takes years. Much of this is just common sense.

pstarr wrote:This is certainly true but increasingly irrelevant. What passes for extreme wealth is often phony . . . $100 million homes/penthouses, yachts, Andy Warhol soup cans, insecurities/stock market. And land . . . often a McMansion on an oversized lot with a view of another McMansion. The really really superduper wealthy get a view of a real mountain on a national park. They get Telluride. Whoopdee friggin' doooooo lol

Real super wealth is in quality urban real estate, townhouses and occasionally apartment building (but nothing above the 10th floor) quality farmland, sustainable timberland/plantations, mines and mineral rights. Not ocean front property in flaeedah. The good stuff is rare.

Yes, the rest is often in the hands of remaining top half of our society, but they are slipping and will not return. Giant middle class sprawl outside of the city, away from ports, rail hubs, and sea lanes are of little value anymore. The homes are poorly sited, energy hogs, and without arable land. The poverty of the lower classes, and impoverishment of the middle class is a true threat to the wealthy. The wealthy need their underlings happy, well fed and ready to to die for them.

onlooker wrote:I think Pstarr, gets to a good point vis-a-vis the 1%. My interest is not blaming them or ourselves for that matter. I am sure after we die we will have to account for all this. No, it is projecting what will likely happen. So to this end the 1% would be better defined by elite power rather than wealth. In the coming future, wealth will evaporate as Pstarr documents well in his above post. All those digits on computers will go poof. So the wealthy 1 percent are in the same boat as everyone else, their nominal wealth will not amount to much or anything. Actually, some of them have understood this and have built bunkers and doomsteads to ride out the Collapse. How feasible that is is open to serious inquiry. How long can they stay there, probably not too long. Then what? As for the power brokers well at some point down the road, since money will become worthless, nobody will obey them. No, the smart people will be part of a flourishing (skill sets) and united community. Given the small number of truly elite people on this planet, I suspect that they are among the worse positioned to be part of a Community. Many will have grievances against them and they will be seen as outcasts at best. So, to the extent that this thread is focusing on the 1 percent it is in fact useless. They will not have much if any bearing on how things proceed into the further off future.

Ibon wrote:

pstarr wrote:The wealthy need their underlings happy, well fed and ready to to die for them.

A good parasite debilitates his host only just enough.

Subjectivist wrote:
I am not a fan of elitists, but tell me any group of humans who do not serve their own self interests? Even most charity work done by Christians or Budusts or Humanist groups comes with rewards. They might be social status within the group, or and expectation of acreward in the afterlife, but the motivation is very rarely pure altruism.

Hawkcreek wrote:If you get into too much of that, you run into the analysis paralysis that seems to beset so many.
At some point you have to make value judgements. What is right, and what is wrong?

[I do not know what conditions will be like in rural areas, but from what I see in poor countries, some communities are affected by various armed groups, from subversives to government para-military units to bandits.

ralfy wrote:
Reminds me that meme featuring Jason Read: