Congratulations, after ten thousand years of struggle, the ruling class has finally won for good, permanent victory has been declared by - Venkatesh Rao.
Marx says in the Communist Manifesto - "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
Marx had a point here about the long time span. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, written several thousand years ago, rulers are advised to capture new slaves from far-away, rural areas, as these slaves tend to be more passive. These issues have been around for a while - from that time, to the time of Pisistratus, and Spartacus and the Roman Servile wars, and the struggle between the optimates and the populares, to the German Peasants revolt of the 16th century up to this modern day - one may have noticed how large and militant the May Day rallies in Spain and Greece (unemployment is 26% in both countries) were. US drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan or the Boston marathon bombings - these struggles carry on over time.
If one reads a lot of Marx (something John McCarthy said was a sign of a wasted youth), you see the point that just when some system is said to be completely victorious, it has usually peaked and is on a long downhill slide until something new comes along. Louis XIV was called the Sun King and is quoted as saying, L'Etat, c'est moi, but less than eighty years after his death, Louis XVI was guillotined in front of a crowd of revolutionary sans-culottes.
Final victory is here for the investor...well, we will see about that...
I think you and Venkat agree. Venkat is saying that the current balance of power has tipped towards the investor class, and we are seeing the emergence of a new middle class while the old one disintegrates. He's not saying that this new balance is permanent, and in fact spends a lot of time developing the thesis that these shifts are always happening.
...and evolution is directed toward a more perfect form? History isn't moved by invisible forces towards a precognitive goal any more than an invisible hand of a creator directs evolution, or deities direct kings to make divinely sanctioned choices.
Congratulations, after ten thousand years of struggle, the ruling class has finally won for good, permanent victory has been declared by - Venkatesh Rao.
Marx says in the Communist Manifesto - "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
Marx had a point here about the long time span. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, written several thousand years ago, rulers are advised to capture new slaves from far-away, rural areas, as these slaves tend to be more passive. These issues have been around for a while - from that time, to the time of Pisistratus, and Spartacus and the Roman Servile wars, and the struggle between the optimates and the populares, to the German Peasants revolt of the 16th century up to this modern day - one may have noticed how large and militant the May Day rallies in Spain and Greece (unemployment is 26% in both countries) were. US drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan or the Boston marathon bombings - these struggles carry on over time.
If one reads a lot of Marx (something John McCarthy said was a sign of a wasted youth), you see the point that just when some system is said to be completely victorious, it has usually peaked and is on a long downhill slide until something new comes along. Louis XIV was called the Sun King and is quoted as saying, L'Etat, c'est moi, but less than eighty years after his death, Louis XVI was guillotined in front of a crowd of revolutionary sans-culottes.
Final victory is here for the investor...well, we will see about that...