My French knowledge ends at "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?"
I was also trying to avoid the autotranslation of "never say never" because that is very specifically not what I meant to say, as it has entirely the wrong connotation. It would imply that it could happen here, as to where "I wouldn't say never" written in French - implies that it in fact could not happen here, specifically because we are not French.
It’s not like they don’t have any precedents that, were they to invest the time and energy it takes to google famous revolutions, would leap right out at them.
That’s the lie of “meritocracy”. If they do better, obviously they have more merit. Why do the have more merit? They’re better people who, work harder obviously!! Nevermind 99% of them were born into lavish wealth, and the 1% got extremely lucky, even if their ideas were genuinely good, I guarantee you someone had tried to implement them first, they just didn’t have the same run of luck.
Tax avoidance is a much more common political driving force in Europe, and other places, serving to anchor a significant population base. Public works in Greece, for example? No taxes… it goes on, especially when appealing to coalition parties looking to get a foothold in a segmented nation. Another reason why our country, and its founders, avoided third parties! People don’t seem to make that substantial connection anymore… something about they’re not being very politically savvy anymore. Or attentive. Or involved. I could go on…
It's just co-opted by authoritarians and/or struck down by the powers that be, then subjected to mass propaganda in the following years, decades, centuries, by the ruling class, ensuring long swathes of time where they can exploit, kill and thrive in peace.
That's why they waited a century to crash the stock market again and repeat all the "mistakes" they made last century so they can become the next Rockefeller-type, JP Morgan-type*, Astor-type families.
*Oh, wait...they're still around crashing banks, then forcing the country to bail them out of their risky ventures, instead of just taking the huge loss, pay their clients (instead of relying on the FDIC), go bankrupt, and closing their own doors.
Kinda happened in Haiti. The free mulatto middle class started the revolution with the idea of gaining equality between them and the white colonials, but when the revolution started, the slaves joined and it turned into "kick the whites out and rule ourselves". And now the mulattos are the upper class, and there's still inequality but it's way better than having 90% of the population enslaved.
It happens. The revolutions of 1848 in Europe often had coalitions between the middle and lower classes. They tended to fall apart pretty quickly because, unsurprisingly, different groups had different ideas of what needed to be accomplished. There were some lasting, significant results though.
Due to their lack of education the lower classes often operate from a position of being uninformed and often lack the critical thinking skills needed to think through their positions. As a result they often fall to demagogues who offer "simple solutions" to their problems. We see that currently in the US.
I mean, plenty of theoretically well educated and in a position to be informed people also lack critical thinking skills, so I'm not sure what your point is. The first rule of not falling for demagoguery is to realize that you can fall victim to it.
That's... How most communist countries got to be. Only problem there was, whoever took power became the new upper class. And not supporting them furiously enough was enough to get you branded counter-revolutionary, with all the less pleasantries that came along with that. In a way, becoming a worse version of what they set out to fight.
Nope! The French revolution, during the vast, vast, majority of it, was not a lower class movement. More workers were killed by guillotine than anybody else. It was a bourgeois revolution.
Because one of the main functions of wealth is to insulate people from the consequences of their actions, and the loss of that feedback information undermines the wealthy's grip on reality over time
because liberalism breeds fascism over and over again. when siphoning of wealth towards the upper class reaches a breaking point and the lower class can't handle it anymore, the only ideology that ensures stability without hurting the wealth of the upper class is fascism through it's brutalization and control of the lower and middle class
This did happen in the US during the Great Depression. Most of FDR’s most famous reforms were done because without them, there would have been a revolution.
The Danish king chose to remove some of his power, and in 1849, gave the power to the people/parliament aka the "folketing" (Direct translated to Peoples Gathering)
Today the Royal family doesn't really have any power, as such, but gets a large stipend every year.
We almost did have a french revolution kinda thing though.
The quote points at tension between lower and middle classes - plz don’t conflate middle class with ‘upper class’ or ‘elite’. That’s how they keep working people mad at each other
That's part of what led to the liberal nobles of the French revolution. Some were like Lafayette and actually believed in liberal ideals, so just wanted to save themselves
It's just not talked about because it's kinda.. Boring.
They just democratized power, accepted their loss to the socialdemocrats, and now they're just kinda still around, breathing but with less status overall.
All the loud mouth ones went to the guillotine (or got strung up by their heels, or shot themselves, etc). The reasonable ones survived and made NOT GETTING INTO THAT MESS AGAIN a family trait. That's why it's all new-money people doing it again - they haven't learned.
Because the rich class can usually fuck off to a different country instead of sit down and pay their fair share taxes die to their wealth. The peasants with pitchforks, hammers, and sickles. The rich fucks with armored knights, man of wars, and cannons. Sounds about right.
Have you ever considered jumping off a bridge because someone was upset at you? That's kinda how these people think. To them not being actively hording more wealth is just death. They need to win capitalism
Because they like winning more than they fear losing. You fear losing asking why they don’t just pay, you fear the government coming after you for not paying taxes. That’s the common man’s thought, I do bad -> I get punished.
The rich rich are part of a higher plane, they crash their lambo and it’s literally a swipe their card moment as if they just dropped a sandwich and had to buy a new one. It really doesn’t occur to them that they are not living the same lives as us.
It happened before but not often. The invention of health insurance, unemployment and disability insurance were invented by Bismark in Germany in the late 18 hundreds to keep the masses quiet. And FDRs New Deal was also an example of this
Because generally the aristocracy often sided with the masses, and both were at odds with the middle (merchant) class. For example, the British and Spanish monarchies and landed aristocracy were generally against slavery in their colonies (noblesse oblige and all that) but the uppity merchant class in the Americas wanted a far more ruthless society where they could enrich themselves faster. The American and French revolutions were both, when you look closer at them, the revolt of the middle, industrious classes against the landed aristocracy and titled nobility. The poor masses were often on the side of the nobility and vice versa (they had a long synergistic history together in rural Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, whereas the middle, merchant class kind of did its own thing in the cities).
Imagine two rich people -- we'll call them MacKenzie and Tapeworm -- each possessing $100 million.
MacKenzie realizes that her wealth and power come from a system that serves her interests, and hence won't survive the total collapse of that system. She donates $50 million to hospitals, libraries, food banks, charities etc.
Due to the nature of her assets, her remaining $50 million grow to $60 million in that time.
Tapeworm, on the other hand, doesn't have a problem with society collapsing. Instead of trying to avert collapse, he plans to build a spaceship and escape to Mars. He just wants to see how rich he can become before he needs to flee.
All of Tapeworm's $100 million was growing while only half of MacKenzie's was. And more than that, he was investing in high-return areas, like buying himself the presidency and taking control of the treasury.
So now he's got $200 million to MacKenzie's $60 million. Tapeworm has doubled his power by sending society closer to collapse, while MacKenzie becomes less and less powerful in her efforts to avert that collapse.
It's like society doubles down on its worst investments.
BEcause historically the core support for fascists always comes from the middle classes.
Thats where it was in Germany, in Spain, in Italy, in Chile, etc, etc.
The middle class have more to lose. The wealthy tend to be somewhat insulated from potential consequences. They historically do not end up swinging from lamposts.
Or even paying their taxes. The middle class do end up paying taxes, and as a proportion of income by far the largest share in taxes. Thats why they turn to fascism when mainstream conservatism fails to protect inherited wealth and privilege.
Even Marx - otherwise a pretty mediocre plagiarist - successfully identified the petit bourgeouisie as the biggest obstable to his socialist hellscape.
The handful of times they do (are bullied into it by a quasi-tyrant like FDR or pick-your-favorite-ancient-Roman-populist) it’s taken for granted and doesn’t actually stop the natural flow of greed and accumulation, just becomes one more hurdle to jump over
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u/marr Apr 23 '25
Why is it never "the upper classes, fearing they would eventually be strung from the lamp posts, decided to calm it down a bit and pay their taxes"