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Michael Tae Sweeney@mtsw.bsky.social |
Time after time in every era, we find that the wealthy oligarchs *oppose* policies that would lead to faster economic growth and they welcome destructive reactionary economic measures because they'd always rather protect their power than grow their wealth.
10 replies 56 reposts 375 likes
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JauntyWunderKind
@jauntywk.bsky.social
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Rereading LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness for book club, the first chapters strongly resonate with this. The Mad King, welcomed into the Ekumen (Galactic Federation) but who snubs the envoy & woud prefer being the only one with power.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Mike Billips
@mbillips.bsky.social
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They’re also mostly lightly educated dumbasses who are good at selling and bullshitting but don’t actually know how anything works. They’ll fight for lower marginal tax rates when higher taxes would give them higher after-tax incomes because of economic stimulus.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Buchman
@buchman.bsky.social
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They also back authoritarians despite the fact that authoritarians are the only ones who have the power to jail them on a whim. A system with rules to exploit is great for them! Why put yourself under a dictators whims? At least look at how many of Putins allies have fallen out of windows!
1 replies 0 reposts 9 likes
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Rob Simmons
@simrob.com
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This makes me think about the billionaire’s shouldn’t exist argument - because I think it’s in part an argument that billionaires cannot, in any real sense, grow their wealth. They have all the wealth that can matter, so the *only* way they can better themselves relatively is to hurt everyone else.
1 replies 0 reposts 11 likes
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Michael Tae Sweeney
@mtsw.bsky.social
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I mean I'm not disappointed exactly, this is common behavior for elites in every era of human history! But there's no reason to accept reactionary's false frame of "economic growth vs [human rights, environmentalist, labor rights, welfare programs etc]" because the elites oppose economic growth
1 replies 15 reposts 128 likes
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Doctora Malka Older
@older.bsky.social
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*because they'd rather protect the power they get through RELATIVE wealth than allow everyone's to increase
0 replies 1 reposts 16 likes
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Dr. Benway
@docbenway.bsky.social
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Also, regardless of their intelligence before becoming a wealthy oligarch, attaining that status generally seems to be detrimental to their cognitive functioning.
0 replies 1 reposts 8 likes
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This Sandwichman is Tom Walker
@thesandwichman.bsky.social
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Their power ensures that their wealth grows no matter what. Don't kid yourself.
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Andrew Blum
@ablum.bsky.social
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Turkey taught me this.
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DaoToaD
@daotoad.bsky.social
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That’s because, for the oligarchs, it’s not about absolute wealth, it’s about relative wealth. They can already buy any things they want. For the abstract things like impunity, and power, making everyone else poor makes them easier to acquire. A hungry person will do almost anything for food.
1 replies 0 reposts 3 likes