Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The 1% need maybe 10% more of the population, and that is probably the 2-6% and the 95-100%. A large chunk of the 99% in the West have already been replaced by machines or could be in a few years if they needed to be. This will only get significantly worse in coming decades. We probably already live in a world in which a significant portion of the population serves little to no economic purpose. The scary thing is this has been the case for most of recorded history, and we have never really found an answer to it.
Just look at the Gulf Arab states which are pretty much your idea in action. The locals do little work outside of government, management, finance, and religion. They import guest workers that outnumber them between 4 to 1 and 10 to 1 to do most of the work.
The 1% couldn't survive without the 99% anymore than the plantation owners could have survived without the slaves.
But you've hit upon an interesting analogy. Slavery has been society's traditional method of making those who exist of the economic fringes of society valuable to society, and this goes back to ancient times. It was far from 99%, but a rather high number of people traditionally are inept at managing their own lives or don't care enough to mind someone else having near complete control over them. In the last 200 years or so that has largely been replaced by a welfare state, which might in most ways better serve human dignity, but it completely removes any economic value they might provide to society.
In fact many if not nearly all plantation owners could have survived fine without slaves, but they would've had to pursue some other line of work besides plantation owning. The Calvin Candies of the world who were protected from their own idiocy by a wise slave who gave them guidance were rare indeed. Most people simply aren't oblivious enough to be manipulated to that level.
Sure, the 1% would survive for a while on what the 99% have already produced and stored. But machines and parts wear out. Food supplies and clean water run out. Who will build new machines and maintain the power plants? Who will house, feed and breed the herds and slaughter the animals for food? Who will plant, fertilize and harvest the crops. Who will transport those crops? Someone needs to drive and unload the trucks. Who will clean the public toilets, sweep the streets and collect the garbage?
The 1% will have to divide themselves. Will those on the lowest financial scale be forced to do the labor the 99% once did?
Interesting discussion to ponder.
There are the Draa books by SM Stirling in which the ruling class eventually genetically engineers those outside of the ruling class into being willing slaves averse to violence and with little initiative or ambition. Of course in that scenario the ruling class was about 10% of the population and had already eivided society into masters and slaves 150 years or so before the genetic engineering began. Similarly, his novel In the Courts of the Crimson Kings mentions a mindless hominid species used for a laborer that could do simple tasks but was too dull to be able to speak and left to its own devices only did little more than eat and copulate and those only when food or members of the opposite sex were in its immediate area.
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?
Sure they could survive. Would just need to change their life style and become self sufficient. A cottage economy like the days of old. It may be they would thrive better than some folks on the complete other end of the spectrum, some of whom don't have the drive to get out and work.
Obviously not. Without worker bees to take care of all the boring/unpleasant/difficult jobs, their money is really worthless.
Exactly. The OP uses the Hawaiian Islands as the location for this experiment. What happens when the air conditioning systems start breaking down and requiring maintenance? No one from the 99% will be there to fix the A/C systems. The 1% would be reduced to living like the "savages" in Papua New Guinea and I just can't see that happening. It would be too icky for them. The 1% would simply perish if they had to live naturally. Their money is worthless outside the oligarchical, pseudo-capitalist environment they created.
Even the creators of the TV show "The Walking Dead" are smart enough not to make any of the characters former billionaires. No billionaire could adapt to life beyond their cushy oligarchical, pseudo-capitalist environment, period.
We probably already live in a world in which a significant portion of the population serves little to no economic purpose. The scary thing is this has been the case for most of recorded history, and we have never really found an answer to it.
Not seeing that. Anybody who gets paid to work serves an economic purpose.
The upper class has depended on the labor and support of the masses since civilization began. With the industrialization revolution automation and mass production changed things a bunch. Instead of just being a source of labor, the masses were now *consumers* of production. The best way for the oligarchs to get richer and more powerful was to grow the size of the entire pie. And so we've enjoyed almost 200 years universal prosperity and rising living standards.
What will happen when most people functionally unemployable and really don't serve an economic purpose?
Exactly. The OP uses the Hawaiian Islands as the location for this experiment. What happens when the air conditioning systems start breaking down and requiring maintenance? No one from the 99% will be there to fix the A/C systems. The 1% would be reduced to living like the "savages" in Papua New Guinea and I just can't see that happening. It would be too icky for them. The 1% would simply perish if they had to live naturally. Their money is worthless outside the oligarchical, pseudo-capitalist environment they created.
Even the creators of the TV show "The Walking Dead" are smart enough not to make any of the characters former billionaires. No billionaire could adapt to life beyond their cushy oligarchical, pseudo-capitalist environment, period.
Actually, Joanna was certainly upper class and so was Michonne. Both were leaders in their respective groups. The black guy introduced towards the end of Season 1 of Fear the Walking Dead (forgot his name along with all the other characters) and who looks likely to become a leader in that group is clearly a millionaire if not a billionaire.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Can the 1% survive without the need for the 99%?
