Surviving Capitalism (Not) : How the Super-Rich Are Abandoning America

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, November 9, 2013

How the Super-Rich Are Abandoning America

Click here to access article by Paul Buchheit from Common Dreams.

This author give us a well-documented and concise update on some of the evolving characteristics of the One Percent (actually .01 of the 1%). His assembled evidence confirms my view that they are assuming a trans-national based class identity, and at the same time becoming even more insular with regard to other people in general.

As they accumulate more and more wealth, the very rich have less need for society. At the same time, they've convinced themselves that they made it on their own, and that contributing to societal needs is unfair to them. There is ample evidence that this small group of takers is giving up on the country that made it possible for them to build huge fortunes.

Of course, this liberal view ignores the system (after all, "there is no alternative"!) created by the ancestors of this socioeconomic class that made their fortunes possible. Capitalism is a system that established individual "owners" of an economy that is primarily social in nature, gave the "owners" the right to appropriate as much wealth as they could through the exploitation of slaves, wage-workers, and the environment, and gave them the right to pass on this wealth down to succeeding generations of their families.