I take issue with the second panel. The rich don’t want poor people to die. They want poor people to shut up and just quietly live in servitude to the wants and desires of the rich.
I grew up wealthy. Not generational wealth wealthy, but my parents were in the 1 percent.
About half of rich people just don’t care about poor people. Like, they don’t even register them. They built entire systems to separate them for poor people. When they are essentially forced to interact with them (basically low skilled manual jobs for which there is no choice but to hire someone low wage), they just act like they don’t exist.
The other half are the most progressive people you’ll ever meet. Like they’ll talk about how capitalism is a failed system, ACAB, and queer rights. However it’ll all be from the perspective of someone who just doesn’t truly understand the struggles of an average person. They still self isolate, and they don’t truly understand how the world works outside their bubble.
I’m a bit of an aberration. Both of my parents were children of immigrants. They didn’t grow up poor or anything, but the value set I was raised with was a bit more down to earth, even if my lifestyle wasn’t.
I’m American but moved to the UK about 14 years ago. The elite over here are just different. They genuinely think that people are just livestock, and they’re the all knowing farmers that keep the farm running. Without the farmers the whole operation would fall apart. It’s a “you need us. If left to your own devices you’d destroy yourselves” kind of thing. Honestly, it’s not that far from “the children yern for the mines” kind of thing.
In the US, my impression still is that anyone could become that wealthy elite, and the elite know it. They think they’re at the top because they’re the best. But they’re scared someone better is already out there. What worries them is knowing what someone would do to bring them down - because they know they’d do the same.
It really is a different vibe between the two sides of the Atlantic. One side thinks they were chosen by God. The other side knows they’re just the most vicious monkey in the free for all.
To be fair that isn’t entirely wrong. I would in no way say I was raised in the “elites”, but my parents got into the one percent from the middle class. Even among the .1 %, there’s a significant minority of people who are more or less outsiders to their social class.
I think you got the “anyone can become elite” aspect down, but the fear aspect incorrect. Once you reach a certain level of wealth it’s incredibly hard to squander without extreme incompetence. The average rich person isn’t afraid of being replaced. At the same time there is a lot of elitism with the underlying premise of “I did this, why can’t you”.
Sidenote a ton of talk about social justice 100 percent comes from people who grew up in families where money worries were minimal. The reason there’s a disproportionate focus on identity politics is because that’s the only struggle a lot of these people have ever known. The reason why the minority outreach ends up falling flat is because most people involved in these initiatives are white people taking cues off the one minority they know, and that minority often is a decently odd duck themselves. The reason why so much of economic discussion devolves into “capitalism bad” is because these people don’t have so little firsthand knowledge that they can’t really describe nuance.
Of course there’s also Old Money in the US too. My parents went to Ivy leagues so they are friends with a few. They largely tend to project elitism via strict social standards that go beyond wealth. The problem is that an almost comical amount of them seem to burn themselves out in three generations. It kinda kills the mystique when the mark of a “true elite” is hiding your fuckup son at a summer home on cape cod that looks super regal, but lacks a lot of modern amenities and is sort of falling apart.
The real truth here is that this is the same guy
If i were rich I’d build a 3 story chinese buffet.
Ground floor is the restaurant. 2nd floor is employee housing. 3rd floor is for me to live in.
I would pay well, provide housing, and die within 5 years weighing roughly half a ton. Leaving everything I own to my employees.
Tbh sounds like a good deal for all involved. I wish the best of luck to you.
Speaking as someone who grew up fortunate (and some shit happened)… Huge houses suck. They’re like leeches that suck your time away, and I wouldn’t buy one if I had a trillion dollar net worth.
Big house neighborhoods suck too.
The meme’s about a huge yard for a dog, the size of the house is not specified ;)
The rich don’t care about the poor.
They don’t see the poor as human enough to hate.
They live in separate bubbles, go to different schools, live in guard gated places, vacation at places only they can afford. By design, the wealthy are segregated from us, and are taught not to empathize with their livestock.
That’s all anyone outside their class are to them, livestock. Management livestock, laborer livestock, homeless (capitalist scarecrows) livestock. Just levels of livestock.
Honestly I think the sociopathy of market capitalism makes it worse, yes worse, than crimes of hatred.
At least someone who hurts or kills you for who you are cares enough about your existence enough to want to hurt you and revel in your pain.
A wealthy capitalist will feed a thousand children lead or deny a thousand claims for necessary surgeries(topical!), and pay the fine if there’s one at all without so much as a glance at your name. A nameless speed bump on the road to GLORIOUS PROFIT!
It’s just business after all 🤑
The banality of evil certainly wasn’t invented by Nazis and it definitely didn’t end with them
Honestly I think the sociopathy of market capitalism makes it worse, yes worse, than crimes of hatred.
At least someone who hurts or kills you for who you are cares enough about your existence enough to want to hurt you and revel in your pain.
Forgive me for not finding that comforting.
One person has emotions. The other is a soulless robot begging for his off button to be punched.
I think the road from hatred to empathy is far shorter than the road from cold sociopathy to empathy.
At least with hatred, the person lifts their head to see you when they hurt you, they’re passionate about your existence, just in the wrong way. The capitalist presses a button and yawns hurting people in volume, the victims never given a passing thought.
I think the road to my suffering from hatred is far shorter than the road from utter callousness to my suffering.
Maybe people with hate in their hearts are redeemable (though I think this is often overstated by people who don’t understand just how deeply rooted hate is, and how few people actually escape from it), while the sociopathically callous are not. But of the two, one will dedicate far more resources to see me suffer, while the other will only see me suffer if it is convenient for them, and on that very practical consideration, I prefer dealing with the callous over the hate-filled.
It’s the same reason I would prefer living under the coldness of the French Republic as an impoverished Jew in the late 1930s over Nazi Germany.
I don’t think it was meant to be.
As someone who’s been in circles where the question of why we value homeless people and don’t just remove them to make room for people who actually contribute, why yes this is surprisingly real
Besides, from the perspective of the rich, the homeless contribute a deterrent. It’s a billboard warning you that you’ll be homeless if you stop smiling at work.
They don’t want us to die; they just don’t care about us at all. As long as there are enough of us around being obedient little slaves.
They’re heavily invested in AI because they think “enough of us” is a number that can be reduced substantially.
While their goonies work to outlaw abortion and birth control and divorce. What a neat combo pack.
Rich people don’t want people to die … they want poor to stay alive and live as their obedient slaves that serve them.
they want poor who can work to stay alive and live as their obedient slaves that serve them.
Minor clarification.
Exactly, they do want people to die that are of no use to them, as there are limited resources on Earth and anyone not serving them is essentially reducing their size of the share.
limited resources on Earth
That is also what we are all led to believe. If wealth were equally distributed to everyone, everywhere … there would be more than enough food, water and shelter for every living being on the planet. It’s not that the resources are running out, it has more to do with how our economy, wealth and control is distributed. The resources and wealth are held by a few people while everyone else goes without.
Which is the basis of the quote … “Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.”
Of course, this is absolutely true right now, but population is growing. What do you think happens with perfectly equal resource distribution but unlimited population growth?
Education and well balanced people.
Education is well known to cause a population to tend to have fewer children. As people become more educated, more capable and more well cared for … they tend to not want to have as many children. Conversely, when people are poorer and less educated, they tend to survive by having more children … it’s our survival instinct because not all the children may survive but enough offspring survive long enough to have lots more children again.
So if you have a planet full of well educated and well off people everywhere, they will have less children and everyone that is alive will all work towards making things better for everyone else. It’s probably a fantasy or a magical utopia that we can never achieve … but we can hope that we can move in that direction.
Those who can’t work are just as important. They’re made to suffer as an example to make sure those who can work never stop working.
If I were rich, I’d live in a place where the roof didn’t leak. 😊
Being able to afford checks notes a house and a yard isn’t “rich,” it’s something every generation before you was able to do with ease, and it was taken from you.
rich people need poor people to exist
In which god damn world I would want my slaves to die?
They don’t want the slaves to die, just the ones that aren’t slaves, like the homeless which probably “use” more economic value than they create.
the poors ate his dog 😢🙏
ITT: a lot of over-thinking what akshually motivates the rich. The cartoon is humorously capturing the essence of their impact. It’s not meant to be a treatise.
