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Revolution or redistribution ?
SOCIETY AND POWER - 20/02/2019

“The disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor had reached its height, so that the city seemed to be in a dangerous condition, and no other means for freeing it from disturbances… seemed possible but despotic power.” – Plutarch, a Greek biographer, 594 B.C.

 


“Here’s the truth, brothers and sisters, there’s plenty of money in the world. Plenty of money in this city… It’s just in the wrong hands!”– Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York City, January 2019
There’s a massive change happening right now around the world. 

 


Radical, socialist ideas are gripping the world today.Thanks to ten years of money printing and ultra-low interest rates, we’ve experienced a bubble in asset prices. Stocks, bonds, real estate, art, fine wine – basically every asset in the world – has risen to astronomical heights.  And that’s made the people that own these assets incredibly rich.

 

 

In fact, since 2009 (when this giant monetary experiment got started) through 2017, the world’s billionaires’ wealth more than doubled – increasing from $3.4 trillion to $8.9 trillion. And that number has only gotten higher today in 2019. But here’s where the problem kicks in…

 

 

While the rich have been getting much, much richer, the combined wealth of the poorest half of the world – 3.8 billion people – fell by 11% just in the last year. To put those numbers in perspective, the New York Times says the richest eight people on the planet have more wealth than the poorest 3.8 billion.

 

 

Wealth concentrating in the hands of the few is nothing new. It’s happened since the beginning of time. And it makes sense… a minority of the population possesses the most valuable skills. As a result, that same minority earns a majority of the wealth.

 

 


But every, single time throughout history that the gap between rich and poor has gotten too wide, it corrects. And it always happens one of two ways…


• Either the government confiscates wealth via asset seizure and taxes and redistribute that cash, or…
•  The poor come out with their pitchforks  

 


This correction is coming... millennia of history prove that’s the case. And there’s nothing you, any politician or billionaire, for that matter, can do to stop it. Of course. Governments are making all in their power to keep the masses in enough comfort to avoid revolution. They try to redistribute some amount from the richer. The middle class is of course the first target, as they have some property, but not enough to be able to defend it like the most richest can afford. Massively higher taxes are coming. We may even see limits to property ownership, capital controls and attempted regulations on where we can travel and live.

 

 

Wealth disparity and the subsequent rise of socialism isn’t a new phenomenon. It goes all the way back to the ancient Sumerians around 4,000 B.C.  Ancient record-keeping on stone slabs shows how the ruling, priest-king distributed the society’s goods amongst the people.  Socialism happened again in Babylonia in the mid 18th century B.C. when King Hammurabi forgave all his citizens’ debts... Then in Egypt in 323 BC and in China around 145 BC...

 

 

And again in Ancient Rome under Solon when he devalued the currency, forgave debts and raised taxes (with the rich paying 12x more in taxes than the poor). Then the French Revolution in the late 1700’s... France’s coffers were depleted. And decades of poor harvests, droughts and rising prices pushed the people to the brink.  The people revolted against poor, economic policies and overthrew the monarchy... ultimately beheading King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette.  Then the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917... 

 


For the past 6,000 years, these uprisings always happen for the same reason: Too much money concentrates in the hands of the few.  The rest of society feels  trapped, like they have no path to prosperity. They see money thrown around by the government and the rich.They see stocks and real estate prices soar... but where is theirs? When a huge swath of society doesn’t see a way out – when they lack mobility – they fight for change. And today, the wealth gap is reaching a breaking point...

 


Eventually, socialism is winning as the strength in the numbers of the outraged “poor,” rivals that of the wealthy few... Then wealth is either redistributed through legislation or revolution. It doesn’t matter which party control any democratic government... the rise of socialism is happening anyway and any government have to face the alternatives; redistribute urgently wealth or face armed masses invading the parliament.

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