A difference between 18th century France and a medium-term future may be that peasants were essential members of the workforce in the 18th century, whereas the "have nots" may, for the first time, be entirely unnecessary to the ruling classes in order to maintain their quality of life.

If that situation came about, I doubt they'd need fortified enclaves unless they truly preferred that set up. They could merely wipe out the have-nots and be done with it. Or, if we're going to the distant future and the "haves" are more moral, they could just leave Earth and live elsewhere leaving the "have nots" to fight over dirt.

Part of my point is that I don't think the rich could win such a struggle of forces if they're a small minority: it would be more likely that the poor wipe them out, or at least confiscate their wealth, than vice versa. The rich currently survive easily basically because the vast majority of Americans support a rule of law that lets them retain their prerogatives; they are not capable of defending their own prerogatives, at least as things are currently set up. If it were angry masses versus rich people hiring private security contractors, I think angry masses win. A big wild card would be which side the government is on. If the government is run by populists interested in redistributing wealth, do you really think a small minority of wealthy could resist the police?

Well, corrupt third-world countries do live like that and it rarely comes to full-blown riots, usually only when there is little to eat. There doesn't need to be an open confrontation.

But you're right in that the poor are still part of the workforce, hence they do wield power, even if poorly organized. This might be not for long.

There is an interesting case of Russia which is populated by 142 million people, while the ruling elites only have a need for maybe 10% of that number to maintain their natural gas and oil revenue (plus the nukes to defend the same). It might be worth paying attention to as a model of what's to come.

An analogy with 18th century France does not call attention to the fact that the tiny minority of French who were aristocrats had survived the 17th, 16th, 15th, 14th, 13th, 12th, etc centuries just fine, putting down rebellions as needed. Like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquerie

The rich would have a much bigger advantage now because they could afford high-tech weapons. More so in the future. It's just a matter of how far they're willing to go.

At the same time, the saying 'the more you know, the less you need' applies to the poor as well as the rich. those who can afford, for instance, a network connection, can easily find out how to build such things as mustard gas, thermite bombs, etc. The capability of one person to do damage has increased a great deal since the industrial revolution, and a great deal more since the explosion of such things as libraries and later the internet.

My example? Iraq.

The rich can use thermite bombs and mustard gas too.

Iraq could be an example either way. Saddam Hussein had an inferior military to the US, but he could rule the country because he had no compunctions about doing things like gassing villages for opposing him. He was from the Sunni minority, disliked by the Shiite majority, but he had no problem putting down rebellions even after getting badly beaten by the US in '91.

So, as a rebel, your chances depend on the kind of leader you're fighting. If it's a Bush or a Louis XVII, you're in business. If it's a Saddam or someone like the men who put down the Jacquerie, not so much. In the limiting case, the powerful could simply round everybody they didn't like up and exterminate them, Nazi-style, if they chose to do so.

and what kind of leader do you think Warren "I don't pay enough in taxes" Buffet would be? And certainly, if you needed to keep the college-educated bleeding-heart middle classes and upper middle classes on your side, you would be forced to use tactics even less effective than what the us military currently uses in the middle east, which from here look pretty ineffective.

Hell, look at Gates; a guy who could almost be called bloodthirsty as a businessman, ends up donating some huge portion of his fortune to some feel-good charity.

I just don't think those guys have what it takes to be a Saddam. Even if they did; being ruthless and having a matériel and technology advantage is not always enough. Look at how Afghanistan kicked the crap out of the USSR. This wasn't 'cause the USSR was afraid to wipe out villages with it's vastly superior armament... this was because with currently available weapons, it's damn hard to occupy a country that doesn't want to be occupied.

Re: Afghanistan v. the Soviets The British could do it. I see no reason to believe the Afghans would be able to put more than a dent in total air superiority so they could have won the same way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink%27s_War

If the russians could have won through total air superiority, they would have. because they had it, and it didn't make the difference.

I imagine that flight was a greater advantage when it was new, before the insurgents figured out how to effectively counter it (which is to say, to hide amongst civilians friendly to the enemy or to stay underground)

but yeah, I think, at this point, advances in asymmetrical warfare techniques have largely neutralized the advantages of air superiority.

Certainly our current leaders are not the type to mass murder unemployed Americans. But these things can change. Nobody in the 1920s thought that the Germans would soon be trying to exterminate unwanted ethnic groups and colonize Eastern Europe like whites colonized North America (nobody except Hitler, who had already planned it).

Better start building ARC 2, for all the telephone sanitizers.