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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThom Hartmann: The Oligarchs Don't Understand Economic Collapse Happens When They Get All the Money
http://www.alternet.org/economy/danger-ahead-oligarchs-dont-understand-economic-collapse-happens-when-they-get-all-moneyThomhartmann.com / By Thom Hartmann, Sam Sacks
Danger Ahead: The Oligarchs Don't Understand That Economic Collapse Happens When They Get All the Money
The corporate masters seem to have forgotten they depend on working people for their own survival.
November 12, 2012
Lets face it, if your opponent in Monopoly scoops up Boardwalk, Park Place, North Carolina Avenue, Pacific Avenue, both utilities, and the four railroads thats game over.
The other players, all of whom have been relegated to mere consumers instead of property owners, will slowly go bankrupt having to pay higher and higher costs for rent and services, utilities, and transportation. Eventually, one player has all the money and the losers have to clean up the board game and put it away.
But lets assume the Monopoly game doesnt end there. Lets assume the broke players keep rolling the dice and keep going around the board. They essentially keep living their lives desperate and broke, using their credit cards and home lines of credit to stay in the game. Maybe they end up in jail. If theyre lucky, they land on Baltic Avenue and can afford to stay a night in the slums.
Meanwhile, the oligarch who owns everything can no longer collect any income. The other players cant afford to pay rent, they cant pay utilities, and they cant ride on the railroads. Eventually, without consumers spending money, the Monopoly oligarch goes broke, too. His properties and businesses disappear and suddenly everyone is broke!
Thats what Monopolys version of economic collapse looks like. And its very similar to what global economic collapse in the real world looks like, too.
Now put the Monopoly game board away and consider this: Researchers in Zurich, Switzerland have found that there are roughly 43,000 transnational corporations that dominate the global economy. Of those, there are about 1,300 companies that control 80% of all the global revenues for all the transnational corporations on the planet. Now lets take it a step further. Of those 1,300 core companies, only 147 companies, which all happen to own each other in some way, control 40% - or nearly half of all the wealth in the entire transnational corporate network. That means 1% of transnationals own 40% of all the worlds business wealth.
In other words, the global 1% has its own 1%.
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DCKit
(18,541 posts)Have I told you how much I love you in the past two days?
Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)or get a tremendous laugh out of it.
It is dangerous to eliminate "intent" from their actions. They are not automatons.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Chile's economy was devastated, a handful of people got very wealthy, so the free marketers declared it a success.
http://www.bidstrup.com/economics.htm
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)Hated the board game and the real life game sucks even more!
Selatius
(20,441 posts)If you let the players do their thing, eventually only a few players or just one is left in the market. He then becomes a monopolist, and the game stops because there is no more competition.
If you wanted the game to go on and on, you have periodic bouts of trust-busting, where you expropriate money and property from the monopolist and redistribute to the other players who were defeated, and you go again.
Then, you're actually mimicking social programs in real life like the SBA or food stamps or unemployment insurance, programs that help people get back up on their feet when they "lose" the game.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)And then what becomes of the 1 left?
Selatius
(20,441 posts)After the Roman Empire and civil society disintegrated, anybody else who wasn't on the feudal manor died.
Those who were on the plantation or worked for the landowner became locked in and were reduced to serfs and peasants; the landowner became lord; the plantation became the feudal manor. The peasants worked the land to grow food. The lord ate the food and gave the scraps to the peasants. Religion is used to put the fear of the landlord into their hearts with the divine right to rule over all.
The Roman coinage was locked up in the keep, eventually melted down into new coins and stamped with the face of the new lord, this to erase any lingering memory of a form of government elected by people.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)Funny, it was usually done by the only one of my 4 siblings to become a right winger.
Of course, at this point he is the best well off of any of us and calling for our parent's government pensions to be revoked. Arghhh.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)reformist2
(9,841 posts)...redistribution, to be blunt, is the only real solution. Not only is it the solution, it's the only option left. That is, unless you happen to want impoverishment and slavery.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)Up to us to help them understand.
Group solidarity.