Poverty Has Always Accompanied Capitalism

Change is only accomplished through violence ... to defeat those in power, you must kill them (and probably their family and children too) easier just to opt out of the system than give up your life trying to change it.

Russia (royals all dead) managed it, along with France (royals all dead) and Cambodia (Pol Pot)
England failed (Cromwell let some aristocracy live and they came back), Germany too (Hitler had a go, but again let too many Jews leave).

It's really hard to change the established power groups/families/religions in any country, and only a ruthless bloodbath ever succeeds, you gotta kill them ALL, else they creep back.

 

That's not the only way at all. It is one powerful way, for sure. But not the only way. Especially not when you are part of a majority in a properly functioning and (for a large part) reasonable society. It also depends on the exact issue how inevitable the use of violence is.

 

Name one place that changed an established ruling class in any significant way, without a total bloodbath.

 

I was not thinking about revolutionairy change of the ruling class. I am generally not for revolution, more for slowly but steadily onwards progession. Like I said it all depends on what kind of change. Maybe you are having a particular scenario in mind where only violence can change things. I am not.
It's not about violently replacing one system with another and get rid of the currently ruling elite, it is about society as a whole accepting that you can not have the cake and eat it too, in the sense that you can not give your government all your trust and responsibility and every citizen living their life as the ultimate individual. Sooner or later they will find out they actually have to involve themselves to at least a certain extent in how their country is governed.
This seems to me a big problem in some western countries: people are used to (and expect) too much, but don't add or participate to those things themselves. Like they want change and complain alot but they don't even vote, making their complains about how government doesn't represent them or listen to them a self fulfilling prophecy. And they (or most of them to be exact) certainly don't actively participate in society in a problem solving way (if they did that in one way or another, maybe not voting would be more acceptable with such people. Now they are just whiny apathic individuals). They're just busy with their own thing, angry at government because 'it doesn't listen to them'

 

You can't have your cake because the ruling elite already own it all.
Voting for which one of the ruling elite gets to sit on the throne this time seems like an exercise in futility to me.

If you want any change in America, start by killing everyone that ever attended to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, West Point and all the Jewish Bankers (plus all their families) and you might have a chance.

 

Absolute bullshit.You're unreal.Hardly worth going through the pointless verbiage to prove where you're wrong.

 

I'm in the Netherlands. If they (individual citizens) want progressive change in America, instead of forced change through bloody attempts they should get involved, organized, act upon their thoughts and principles (if they actually have any). They don't have to do anything alone. Small efforts combined can make big change. If you don't believe in this it might never happen of course. Ruling elite likes that.

 

This is the voice of frustration. It is known to misguide.

 

What about Venezuela & Cuba

Fill in the blank, but when creative, driven, refugees show up, productivity is increased.

Determine what is the magnet, which draws and keeps creative, productive individuals engaged.

 

There are a few problems with your approach: (1) it underestimates the strength of “false consciousness in the population; (2) it defies human nature and challenges the social contract by underestimating the threat that violent action poses to society as a whole; and (3) it ignores Michels “iron law of oligarchy”.

False consciousness is a Marxist term for the phenomenon “that people are unable to see things, especially exploitation, oppression, and social relations, as they really are; the hypothesized inability of the human mind to develop a sophisticated awareness of how it is developed and shaped by circumstances.” http://www.dictionary.com/browse/false-consciousness Danielle Lewis of the U. of Michigan-Dearborn explains: “Members of a subordinate class (workers, peasants, serfs) suffer from false consciousness in that their mental representations of the social relations around them systematically conceal or obscure the realities of subordination, exploitation, and domination those relations embody. Related concepts include mystification, ideology, and fetishism.” Danielle Little, U. of Michigan-Dearborn http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~delittle/iess%20false%20consciousness%20V2.htm The way this happens was detailed in Frank’s What’s the matter with Kansas? where he argues that the average Kansan is the victim of state government policies of providing lavish tax cuts and benefits to big business and the 1% but has been persuaded that the real enemies are those liberal know-it-all tree-hugging intellectuals who want to teach evolution in our schools, attack God and country, take away our guns, etc. Same could be said of Oklahoma. Diverted by consumerism or hatred of the "others"-- vulnerable minorities and immigrants--the working stiffs are unable to see through the smokescreen of doubletalk created by their corporate masters.

Your plan to redistribute the wealth seems to call for killing the rich and their families and taking their stuff. I’m not clear whether you’d plan to be Robin Hood or just keep it for yourself. Either way, it runs afoul of basic principles of human psychology and social order identified by a couple of seventeenth century English philosophers who were highly influential on our Founding Fathers. Hobbes thought government rested on a mutual interest in law-and-order and the need for self-preservation. Without government he said, there would be a “war of all against all” in which life would be “nasty, brutish, and short”. Therefore, people were willing to submit to a sovereign who could protect the public order. John Locke emphasized the need for protection of property. People like to own stuff and when they put their labor into acquiring it, they don’t want it taken away. So they institute governments to protect their lives, liberty and property. And hang people like you who threaten it from the yardarm.

The examples that you offer—Cromwell, the French Revolution, and Pol Pot would give most students of history pause. All ran repressive regimes full of bloodshed, and led to counter-revolutions that restored the status quo ante. At best, after all the blood and guts, they produced regimes that were worse and more repressive than the ones before. In 1915, Roberto Michels introduced his “iron law of oligarchy” that “in any organization or society, an elite will naturally emerge independently of democratic election.” https://www.reference.com/government-politics/definition-iron-law-oligarchy-95e406687e459f4d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy https://www.britannica.com/topic/iron-law-of-oligarchy
So we trade one set of ruling elites for another. In the immortal words of the Who:

“I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss”

 

There isn't another economic system out there that is both technologically progressive and has avoided poverty. Calling the Norwegian countries socialist is something only a die-hard capitalist could do. They're all welfare states in the classic tradition of ancient Rome just like the US and, in Europe's case, the only reason they can even afford all the social programs they have is because the US is footing the bill for half the costs of NATO and the UN. Right now Europe couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper bag and if the US were stop funding NATO the Germans, the Russians, or somebody else would take over the entire continent and when the banking system collapsed they were left with nothing and utterly at the mercy of the US. That's why the US is still there because the whole world economy would collapse if we were not there. Its empire baby, and this train ain't stopping until she derails. He with the most toys (guns) tells you what your money or anything else is worth and freedom is just another commodity to be bought, sold, or fought for.

 

oops

 

You declared you would be three inches taller
You only became what we made you.
Thought you were chasing a destiny calling
You only earned what we gave you.
You fell and cried as our people were starving,
Now you know that we blame you.
You tried to walk on the trail we were carving,
Now you know that we framed you.


I'm the guy in the sky
Flying high Flashing eyes
No surprise I told lies
I'm the punk in the gutter
I'm the new president
But I grew and I bent
Don't you know? don't it show?
I'm the punk with the stutter.
My my my my my mmmm my my my.

GGGGG-g-g-g-g generation.


We tried to speak between lines of oration
You could only repeat what we told you.
Your axe belongs to a dying nation,
They don't know that we own you.
You're watching movies trying to find the feelers,
You only see what we show you.
We're the slaves of the phony leaders
Breathe the air we have blown you.

 

I'm not in the existing ruling elite, I have a chance of being in the new ruling elite.
Trade on!

 

Compared to the welfare states of Scandinavia and north west Europe I would say the US is on a slightly different level. And ancient Rome altogether. It was class based, had slaves and was harsh for the have nots. They basically had to beg in front of the rich peoples doors in order to get some bread (which was a common practice).

 

That's true but, again, its only because that is what the US encourages them to be by taking over the role of their national defense. Never forget it is the guy holding the gun to your head or that of your enemies that decides what your life and money are worth. A helpless Europe has to compromise with the US on whatever we demand but, at the same time, we want them to keep making money for us because we are essentially their landlords just as Rome was for their provinces.

That's part of the history of capitalism in general. The Greeks and Romans stole a lot of their technology and ideas from the Egyptians with the real European innovation being the development of modern bureaucracy. The Romans invented things like double ledgers and, in the middle ages the Italians also invented what would recognizably be a modern bureaucracy. This later led to the Catholic church losing ground to the Protestant reformation because the whole point of all this elaborate bureaucracy was to combat not only corruption, but the wealthy taking over at the first opportunity and destroying the middle class. However, there is no way to stop them from eventually taking over and America was founded by those who were among the most persecuted by the entrenched wealth in Europe. By all accounts, we had something like a real Jeffersonian democracy for about fifty years, but the civil war and continuing industrial revolution quickly put an end to that. The great depression allowed the US to recover some ground it lost during the civil war, but success always leads to the same conclusion of the wealthy eventually taking over and, after WWII, the US was the only modern country left with an intact industrial infrastructure.

He with the most toys (guns) always wins and the wealthy will always buy the most guns making it an ongoing process of two steps forward and one back.

 

Material poverty has been eradicated in the West today by capitalism and technology. I used to live on the street, without a penny to my name but still had all my essentials simply provided for me by the charity sector. So can anyone. What people call 'poverty' is just left-wing nut jobs trying to get ahead by exploiting the very people they claim to be championing. If they really cared about people, they'd tell them to give up their attachment to material possessions and cultivate the Spirit. But, no - that wouldn't get them adoring ears, that wouldn't help them attain their luxurious careers. All that still exists today in the West is spiritual poverty: the failure of individuals to self-educate and work towards Enlightenment and Self-Realization.

 

Material poverty still exists with one of my best friends having been born in a barn, raised in another one and, finally, in a tree house. Another friend of mine was one of twenty-two children raised in a tin shack without electricity, plumbing, or a father and both were raised right here in the US. Poverty still exists and is often much worse than most people know, in part, because keeping it hidden is part of the agenda and why so many of the ghettos these days have had walls built around them. Its why they make sure to often dress the impoverished in decent clothing and, these days, many of them live in suburbs with their only other alternative being to become homeless. Their spiritual poverty is also part of the same money making proposition that promotes the idea that contentment is for losers and fighting is the only way to get what you really need and want. When money and the gun do all the driving reclaiming your own sanity can become a lifelong struggle and all of your posts on the internet are falling on deaf ears when the impoverished are growing up in tin shacks. Wealth has no meaning outside of poverty and poverty has no meaning outside of wealth. Just ask Grameen Bank.

 

If he was one of twenty-two children, that is more due to spiritual poverty of the parents in having more kids than they or almost anyone could possibly afford. Its true, children remain prey to the quality of their guardians; but when the State tries to interfere in that, it tends to make things even worse. My point was that the problems people face are not due to material scarcity anymore, but rather to a state of mind.

 

We're all in the same lifeboat earth together so we all share that same poverty of spirituality and, with technology continuing to advance, our lifeboat is becoming smaller every day and threatening to be swamped. Reality without dreams is just somebody's nightmare, while dreams without reality is someone else's fantasy. What we need to do is find new ways to bring the two together again.