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If separated, 1% will split itself into 1% and 99% warp speed, except that sheer physical brutality and gang building skills, not the amount of $ they've accumulated, will define who is who. It would take at least a few generations to hook up 99% on the rag to riches, meritocracy or divine predestination stories, until then old fashioned coercion would be employed. Actually, human apes, regardless of income, would behave along those lines if isolated in large groups.
In the abstract, sure, some would be able to "survive". But they'd sure like to have the 99% to clean up after them. And in a larger sense, if their money comes from actually MAKING something, it's probably a portion of the 99% that will be the consumers for those items or the workers making those items.
Like Ford who paid good wages with the understanding that some of his employees could eventually afford one of the cars they were making these companies can only go for so long before they cannibalize themselves...or at least I hope that happens and there's a turnaround before the economy collapses out of complete greed.
For some reason I'm inclined to say that technological advances make it so that the 1% can survive without the need for the lower classes, and that the makeup of the humanity of the future will be largely determined by who is part of the uppermost classes today.
Perhaps I'm wrong, though. Is it:
- Impossible to achieve?
- A technical possibility?
- A technical reality?
First, the "one percent" (though we should really be talking about the 0.1%) in wealth aren't where they are because they're smarter than others. They are smarter on average, but the more important characteristic is that they're better at using group strategies to dominate people competing as individuals.
Second, there is very little overlap between the technologists who make it all possible and the "one percent" (though we should really be talking about the 0.1%). The trick to becoming wealthy is to figure out how to take wealth from those who produce wealth. But the "one percent" are implementing policies that will eliminate the wealth-producers.
The 1% couldn't survive without the 99% anymore than the plantation owners could have survived without the slaves.
Technology in the era of plantantion owners was not nearly as advanced as today; would today's technology allow such an enclave to have enough fully automated functions for an enclave of the very rich to survive?
Worldwide chaos will affect the 99% long before the 1% is...
Technical possibility would probably come under the form of AI-based and machine learning-based technology assuming said day-to-day needs.
But who would make the machines? Who would grow the food?
We are a long way off before robots and AI can replace a human. They can do some human tasks, but they cannot replace humans. Before things get to the point where humans are replaced completely by robots/AI, things will go French Revolution and the peasants will be attacking the upper class and burning their houses.
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Originally Posted by davidv
But who would make the machines? Who would grow the food?
We are a long way off before robots and AI can replace a human. They can do some human tasks, but they cannot replace humans. Before things get to the point where humans are replaced completely by robots/AI, things will go French Revolution and the peasants will be attacking the upper class and burning their houses.
NOT if the 1% are even 1/2 as smart as the think they are. If this is so, they'll trickle down to the lower classes just enough to keep them demotivated from starting that revolution. Yeah, the lowest 1% may grumble, but not be motivated enough to take a bullet (or particle beam) for the sake of obtaining a higher standard of living. And you can bet that enough of that current upper 1%, drawing on the history of the past 200 years, WILL be influential enough in their own status clique to convince all their fellow 1%ers, however grudgingly, to give a few trickles to the lower classes to forestall revolution. They know about the French and Russian Revolutions just as well as the 99% do, if not on average better than the 99%.
Of course this does assume enough of the 1% are actually 1/2 as smart as they think they are AND have enough influence among the other 1%ers for this to happen. Only time will tell here.
As for AI machines replacing humans - even for the most creativity-demanding of tasks, then this is not eliminating the 1% but simply replacing one kind of 1% with another. The new one won't be based on resource possession or acquisition ability so much as on personal appeal- such as having an entertaining personality and other kinds of strong superficial appeal, or otherwise strong ability to get people to like you (kind of like a high school clique as found in the world's wealthiest school districts. I imagine within such a group, money doesn't mean much because any greater level of wealth has little additional effect on emotional well-being or satisfaction).
Thus, I see it quite possible that our pursuit of paradise may well end up being the beginning of our demise as a species; and replaced by AI who (assuming they don't have a survival instinct, will, or desire for freedom) simply are like the Energizer Bunny -- keep on going and going until they run out of fuel, then stop).
The issue really is these wealthy people. how much money do they really have in cash and how well do they manage it. I used to work for a bank and I would see people who made tons of money but their bank account was almost zero at the end of the month. you hear about sports and actors who make tons of money but then file for bankruptcy.
The 1% couldn't survive without the 99% anymore than the plantation owners could have survived without the slaves.
There's the perfect analogy.
In our current "capitalist" system, the rich get and stay rich by using the average Joe for a couple of things:
To provide labor at low cost
To provide a market for the products, services and social programs which the rich control.
To pay taxes to the government, which is controlled by the rich, and which tax payments flow to the rich to "buy" administration/products for the governments programs.
Today's system is nothing more than the corporate communities of yester yore. Fat cat runs the factory, controls every aspect of the workers lives (company housing (nowadays you get a mortgage from the fat cat's bank) and company store (think Wal-Mart) where the worker buys from the fat cat. The fat cat extends credit, from which the fat cat sells crap and gets paid interest.
Without the poor 99% the system collapses. What I find particularly peculiar is why, with the exception of labor unions, which many (most?) people "hate", there has been no attempt break this system. The little guy gets to lease a BMW, for example, made, sold and financed by the fat cat, and he gets to feel like he is part of the "wealthy". In reality, he has NO idea how wealthy the rich really are, and that his BMW is just a trinket which the rich sell to him to appease his ego...and enrich their pockets.
NO, the 1% would quickly collapse without the other 99%.
And in these United States all them babies will grow up to be voters. Someday these voters will vote for a man or woman who promises to take from the rich to give to the poor - and that person will granted the power to do so. It's just a matter of time.
100 years from now, they'll be talking about the "rich" in textbooks.
"It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes."
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