More than 11% of the world’s more than 2,000 billionaires have run for election or become politicians, according to a study highlighting the growing power and influence of the super-wealthy.
While billionaires have had mixed success at the ballot box in the U.S., billionaires around the world have a “strong track record” of winning elections and “lean to the Right ideologically,” said the study, which is by three professors at Northwestern University.
“Billionaire politicians are a shockingly common phenomenon,” the study said. “The concentration of massive wealth in the hands of a tiny elite has understandably caused many observers to worry that the ‘super-rich have super-sized political influence.’”
Marx is spinning in his grave, of course they are. You don’t need to be a communist to read his book. Its called Capital, its almost entirely about capitalism, and much of the critique AND techniques he used for the critique (Dialectics) have become foundational in other aspects of modern society. They should make people read this in school, the only communist teacher I ever had in college made us young lefties who signed up read Milton Friedman and John Smith FIRST. The baby daddies of capitalism, and we did because not knowing only makes us dumber. Why are we dead set on not making ourselves smarter? Remember when General Milley said even he’s read Marx, there’s reasons for that.
Lmao good Marx had bad ideas and got millions of people who believed in them killed.
Also it’s weird to imply Marx invented Dialectics, since he just adopted Hegelian Dialectics in the same style as Engels.
But yes Marx is a very easy read and everyone should analyze his writings, if only to understand the criticisms and why his economic philosophy didn’t age well.
He had bad solutions but his criticisms of capitalism are spot on.
Also I prefer to blame the authoritarian strongmen who consolidated power as opposed to a guy that advocated against hierarchy. Is Adam Smith culpable for the Bengal famine?
As an anti-capitalist, I disagree. He conflated the role of the employer with the owner of the means of production, which led him to the mistaken conclusion that rejecting capitalist appropriation requires rejecting private property per se. It’s really the employment contract that enables capitalist appropriation and exploitative property relations. There are other reasons to oppose private ownership, but that is another story. The classical laborists’ criticisms are spot on not Marx’s
I mean… politicians have been rather wealthy throughout history. You think our founding fathers worked fields? They were significant land owners with influence.
Basically anyone could come settle land (literally free real estate), that’s why they had to borrow a system of indentured servitude to produce. While white indentured servants were initially preferred, the Dutch trade routes and invention of the cotton gin turned in to the institution of chattel slavery of primarily Africans as we know it. Out of this period came the modern notion of “race” and conceptions of white-supremacy as a justification. Then you basically had a merchant economy in the north and an agricultural one in the south, and what was a moral concern for the north was the foundation of the economy in the south. Even after they lost Andrew Johnson basically gave all the planters back their seats in local governments.
There are now 2,000+ billionaires? We’d better get to eating.
“Eat the rich” is only an expression, not a literal call for cannibalism. Do not report this comment.
The irony is you have to be a billionaire to have a big enough walk-in freezer…
To quote Bubba Gump:
Anyway, like I was sayin’, [billionaire] is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There’s uh, [billionaire]-kabobs, [billionaire] creole, [billionaire] gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple [billionaire], lemon [billionaire], coconut [billionaire], pepper [billionaire], [billionaire] soup, [billionaire] stew, [billionaire] salad, [billionaire] and potatoes, [billionaire] burger, [billionaire] sandwich. That- that’s about it.
I’m shocked, shocked I say! well… not that shocked.
It’s because people are proud to lower their standards for what they can get.
They see that the ruling class is tightening its grip, so they convince themselves that this is the best way to go to avoid feeling bad about what we’re missing out on.
