Do the rich really need the rest of us?

[pscot]

Isn't it also obvious that, as the Billionaires Coup gets closer and closer to victory, their hubris brings them closer and closer to killing the cow they're milking?

I don't think that answer is in question. They really are flirting with killing the country. (Well, they're probably well past "flirting"; the roofie's been administered, teabag-style.) Frank Rich's column makes exactly this point, if obliquely.

So which is it? Have the super-rich decided they don't need America any more? Or are they just so in love with Supply Side Jesus that they don't know they're burning the house down with them inside?

In other words, when this country becomes a faltering second-world economy with a useful first-world military, have the super-rich prepared their financial escape? Do the rich really need the rest of us?

In my view, this is the right question, the only one without an obvious answer. But stay tuned; people have started looking at this in earnest, as have I.

http://www.americablog.com/2011/02/frank-rich-heady-with-hubris-teabags.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americablog+%28AMERICAblog%29

[Hosnon]

1. Secessio plebis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secessio_plebis

[Cirque du So-What]

3. It would never work today

Many people - even those on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder - would step up and worship at the rump of the rich for a chance at getting tossed a crumb or two. In as society without pride, there is no longer any stigma attached to being a scab.

[Hosnon]

4. I didn't reply to suggest it should be done; but to suggest that the rich do need the non-rich.

As the ancient Romans made abundantly clear several times.

[Cirque du So-What]

8. And I'm just pointing out that the rich will never be without a supply of willing servants

Plebians in ancient Rome stuck together; nowadays, not so much. Divide-and-conquer tactics have conditioned people to look out for themselves - the greater good be damned!

[Hosnon]

10. I disagree. Class struggle has existed since humanity existed. We're just no where close

to where the ancient Romans were.

Pushed far enough, it could and would happen.

[Cirque du So-What]

11. I agree that class struggle has always existed

but I disagree that *our* society has the wherewithal to muster-up a united front. Too many would betray their class because they believe the myth of the American dream & will be rich themselves one day. There are others who don't fall for the American dream myth but would just as readily fight for the rich for a handful of silver. Hell, who are we kidding? Some would sell their own grandmothers for a buck!

[GTurck]

37. The plebeians...

were out-numbered by Roman slaves. The Plebes were kept quiet by Bread and Circuses. They certainly shared many of the ideas of the Patricians but without the political and economic clout. In fact Patricians and Plebeians were often two sides of the same clan or tribe of the original Latins.
I think your analogy breaks down under these facts but more because what we are talking about is survival. Plebes, slaves both shared the desire to stay alive as long as possible under whatever conditions applied.
It would be the same today for a great many. Maslow's hierarchy starts at surviving.

[Lint Head]

2. Without the worker bees to fill their champange glasses their money

is worthless. What would they buy without someone to make a product? If their is no one to go, "Hey you are such a rich person." how would they know they are rich?

[Doctor_J]

16. Yes, but there are 7 billion people on earth

so the supply of glass-fillers is for all intents and purposes infinite.

[Cal33]

21. But there wouldn't be enough of highly-trained professionals like

engineers and doctors to make their products and tend to their physical needs.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cal33]

26. What you say is very true -- for the present. But India is coming

up economically. It will still be some time, but their highly-trained professionals
will soon be able to find good jobs at home before too many years will have passed.

This is what I believe. The right-wing sociopaths will inevitably self-destruct.
The unfortunate thing is that when they do self-destruct, they will also take a lot
of innocent people along with them. This time it might involve a huge percentage
of the human race. Our only hope lies in preventing them from gaining too much power.

[MedicalAdmin]

27. I agree.

Completely. And I favor the munich option, but I'm not a very nice person when it comes to those who take advantage of others. I used to work in max and supermax prisons and in MN that means they have worked long and hard at being scumbags to get to that level of incarceration. None of which means they were mistreated or anything, but....

... and this is my point, the banksters, insurance companies that deny care, etc are 1000's of times worse than anyone I ever dealt with in supermax. They destroy lives wholesale like a war criminal and they SHOULD NOT SKATE FREE.

[MedicalAdmin]

22. Do you honestly think they won't find willing serfs outside the USA?

The end game is being played out right now. The US currency is being artificially kept afloat until the rich can move assets overseas and in the meantime tools like Walker are setting up for the fire sale of the millenium. They will own everything but all their real wealth will be else where.

Watch for when the US dollar is replaced by another currency as the reserve currency of the world. When oil is not longer traded in dollars we will see hyperinflation that will destroy everyone who isn't a multimillionaire or billionaire who isn't diversed outside the US. It's coming and we sit here like Nero, fiddling with our ...

[notadmblnd]

5. They've forgotten that they need us

they take the people that clean up after their daily shit for granted, and hopefully it will bite them in the ass real soon.

[barbiegeek]

19. They don't need as many of us as there is

[notadmblnd]

20. No, but they need someone to clean their toilets, repair their cars

and perform every other tedious task these SOB are too lazy to perform themselves. But they got the nerve to call working folk slobs. However, I've seen their toilets and they're some nasty disgusting people. Just this morning a very prominent attorney in my area, took a shit and left it in the toilet for us to clean up because he's too cheap and too lazy to replace the worn out flapper on one of his 5 toilets at his home. A fifty f-ing cent fix, but I'm expected to clean it. Guess what? I left his shit still stewing in his toilet.

[barbiegeek]

28. good for you! :)

[glinda]

6. Due to outsourcing/global econ.... the answer is no. They don't rely upon us so they

will drain the last drop and keep going. They will destroy all of our environment, mining, fracking, everything you can imagine becasue they want to stay rich and it is harder to get resources now from other Countries that they rely on. Bottom line is they don't care if you or the creatures of God die off.

[elias49]

7. I think we need each other

and no-one is willing to admit it.

[Doctor_J]

18. I have no need for the Koch Bros, Karl Rove, Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch

of this I am certain.

[damntexdem]

9. Do they need us?

Or do they just think they don't need us?

[scarletlib]

33. Do we need them?

I think the world could do quite well without the super ultra mega rich. I have no problem with people being well rewarded for their creativeness and contributions to society and the world at large but in a reasonable world there should be limits and democratic societies have the right to impose those limits. Really, (not to be picky) but just how much of a contribution have the Walton heirs made to society? Other than continuously trying to enlarge their already huge fortunes and causing a lot of misery to others in jobs lost etc., I don't see what they have done to deserve the continuance of their extremely large fortunes much less manipulating government and business to get even more. And, it's not that I have anything personal against them. I don't. But these types of people are doing very little to advance and improve society for all of us. Sure some of them set up foundations to assuage their guilt for what they did and that's okay but still I think we have the right to limit these types of fortunes. So right now in this country they should be very grateful that we tolerate them at all.

[liberal N proud]

12. They need us until they have what is left of the wealth

They want it all and they want it now

[Doctor_J]

17. At this point what they don't have is marginal

so maybe the bloodsucking will stop soon.

[OwnedByFerrets]

13. At first glance, this seemed a very easy answer...

of course, they need us. They need us as consumers as well as a cheap labor source. But do they really? With China's consumer society growing exponentially, they have both of those things. Probably, at this point, they do need us as a stepping stone...until China's purchasing power actually supplants ours completely. Whether folks want to believe it or not, imho, we are fast becoming a 3rd world country. Its just a matter of time.

[dotymed]

14. I don't think they need to escape.

They will have a huge MIC paid for by the slave wages they allow their chattel. Their every need will be catered to, just like in other third world countries. They will need personal security to protect them, but theirs is a sociopaths wet-dream.
WE are allowing them to realize that dream.

[txlibdem]

31. What is a MIC?

And you are right: the rich are living a sociopaths wet dream. No doubt about that.

[Doctor_J]

15. They don't need us. That's why should ensure that they fear us

[Butch350]

24. Yeah, i need yo bankrupt a** to clean my toilet.

[think]

25. A better question might be Do we really need the rich?

just saying.......

[txlibdem]

30. Darn right! Now that's a good question...

I don't care if the rich need us -- the fact is WE DON'T NEED THE RICH

Deport them. Jail them for their crimes (hello! Why have none of the bankster crooks been arrested yet?!?). Tax them. Whatever. We do not need the rich, that is a false claim that so many of us (even here on DU) have been conned into believing.

We will be a better nation without their anti-social influences.

[txlibdem]

29. self delete

self delete, posted in wrong place.

[yurbud]

32. since the question answers itself, we should figure out where they are going and burn it to the

ground.

metaphorically, I mean.

[Demeter]

34. The Rich Need Us, But We DON'T Need Them, and

never have, never will.

[classysassy]

35. Idealism will bury Capitalism

The next generation of idealist will right this sinking " Ship of Fools".All is not lost if we can wrest control of the schools of higher education from the lackeys that serve the wealthy criminals they the criminal class(wealthy) fear education because that is the thing that will free us from the clutches of the greedy.

[Skittles]

36. more than we need them

[vicarofrevelwood]

38. Without the workers who are they?

A group of spoiled crybabies.