Capitalism when it's gone off the rails.

[Monoethnic Social Club]

Very scary what do you think happens next then?

Never fear my friend, humanity is a repeating wheel, no matter how many try to break it.

 

[Punchanello]

Very scary what do you think happens next then?

As MSC says above, the good news is that their excess is probably unsustainable. Historically they tend to be their own undoing. They overreach, miscalculate, become isolated. Caligula, Emperor Jiajing, Stalin etc. They were not that different to today's oligarchs and billionaires. but these days they act more like feudalists of the European middle ages.

We are probably already seeing their unravelling. The facade is falling away revealing the economic and social destruction they create and how disinhibited and morally debased they are in private. e.g Epstein files.

It's so weird when you read about these guys (and gals) and how consistent the tale is - they are all privileged offspring of generation wealth or inbred monarchy, their physical and mental health begins to deteriorate because of the excess, their private depravity gets exposed, their empires fall apart because they are hollowed out by their greed and incompetence, they cling to power through violence and cruelty. And then in the end they get destroyed by the systems they built for their benefit, all their lackeys and cronies desert them or betray them, they fall to popular uprisings, get assassinated by someone close to them or flee into exile.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

As MSC says above, the good news is that their excess is probably unsustainable. Historically they tend to be their own undoing. They overreach, miscalculate, become isolated. Caligula, Emperor Jiajing, Stalin etc. They were not that different to today's oligarchs and billionaires.

We are probably already seeing their unravelling. The facade is falling away revealing the economic and social destruction they create and how disinhibited and morally debased they are in private. e.g Epstein files.

It's so weird when you read about these guys (and gals) and how consistent the tale is - they are all privileged offspring of generation wealth or inbred monarchy, their physical and mental health begins to deteriorate because of the excess, their private depravity gets exposed, their empires fall apart because they are hollowed out by their greed and incompetence, they cling to power through violence and cruelty. And then in the end they get destroyed by the systems they built for their benefit, all their lackeys and cronies desert them or betray them, they fall to popular uprisings, get assassinated by someone close to them or flee into exile.

Many many moons ago, in Greek high school civics class we learned that the fundamental 3 "layers" of society are almost universal through time, only the names change. Upper, middle and lower class are eternal only the ratios between them change every time there is an "unbalance" in the system.. Sometimes it takes blood and fire, sometimes disease and pestilence, but usually something has to happen for the balance to shift... but it ALWAYS happens, thats human nature.

 

[Punchanello]

We need more education in civics.

I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing, but these scumbags tend not to be students of history or philosophy. So they rarely see the foreseeable outcome until it's too late.

 

[Football us life]

The historical parallel is rhetorically satisfying and contains real patterns, but it overstates both the similarity and the inevitability. Caligula, Jiajing, and Stalin exercised near-absolute coercive power..

They controlled the state’s violence monopoly, could order executions without meaningful restraint, and faced almost no external accountability while in power. Most modern billionaires and even many “oligarchs” do not. Their power is primarily economic and soft (media, philanthropy, political donations, regulatory capture).

They can be sued, investigated, taxed, regulated, or publicly shamed in ways those earlier figures largely could not. When they do fall, it is more often through markets, courts, or reputation than through palace coups or popular uprisings that topple the entire system they built.

The “privileged offspring / inbred monarchy” framing is also a bit too neat. A large share of today’s highest fortunes (especially in technology) are first-generation. Founders who built companies under competitive pressure are not interchangeable with hereditary rulers who inherited legitimacy and then degraded.

Selection effects matter and people who accumulate extreme wealth in open markets are, on average, different from those who simply inherit a throne or a party apparatus.

Private excess and moral disinhibition are real and visible (Epstein is the obvious case). But visibility is higher now, not necessarily the underlying rate.

Historical elites also kept private depravity and we simply lacked continuous documentation and instantaneous global distribution.

The same information environment that exposes scandals also amplifies them selectively. Not every ultra-wealthy person is a secret monster; the ones who are get disproportionate attention precisely because the contrast with their public image is so useful.

Finally, the “they always become their own undoing” claim is stronger than the evidence. Some regimes and fortunes do collapse under excess and incompetence. Others adapt, professionalise management, diversify assets, buy legitimacy through philanthropy or soft power, or simply outlast the current outrage cycle. Capital today is more liquid and less personal than a Ming court or a Soviet apparatus. The system can shed individual actors without the whole structure cracking in the same dramatic way.

The corrosive effects of extreme insulation are real. Treating every high-net-worth individual as a walking historical reenactment of Caligula or Stalin is not....

I’m not especially drawn to the culture that often surrounds extreme wealth, though having some means of my own makes me hesitate before offering too sharp a critique...

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

The historical parallel is rhetorically satisfying and contains real patterns, but it overstates both the similarity and the inevitability. Caligula, Jiajing, and Stalin exercised near-absolute coercive power..

They controlled the state’s violence monopoly, could order executions without meaningful restraint, and faced almost no external accountability while in power. Most modern billionaires and even many “oligarchs” do not. Their power is primarily economic and soft (media, philanthropy, political donations, regulatory capture).

They can be sued, investigated, taxed, regulated, or publicly shamed in ways those earlier figures largely could not. When they do fall, it is more often through markets, courts, or reputation than through palace coups or popular uprisings that topple the entire system they built.

The “privileged offspring / inbred monarchy” framing is also a bit too neat. A large share of today’s highest fortunes (especially in technology) are first-generation. Founders who built companies under competitive pressure are not interchangeable with hereditary rulers who inherited legitimacy and then degraded.

Selection effects matter and people who accumulate extreme wealth in open markets are, on average, different from those who simply inherit a throne or a party apparatus.

Private excess and moral disinhibition are real and visible (Epstein is the obvious case). But visibility is higher now, not necessarily the underlying rate.

Historical elites also kept private depravity and we simply lacked continuous documentation and instantaneous global distribution.

The same information environment that exposes scandals also amplifies them selectively. Not every ultra-wealthy person is a secret monster; the ones who are get disproportionate attention precisely because the contrast with their public image is so useful.

Finally, the “they always become their own undoing” claim is stronger than the evidence. Some regimes and fortunes do collapse under excess and incompetence. Others adapt, professionalise management, diversify assets, buy legitimacy through philanthropy or soft power, or simply outlast the current outrage cycle. Capital today is more liquid and less personal than a Ming court or a Soviet apparatus. The system can shed individual actors without the whole structure cracking in the same dramatic way.

The corrosive effects of extreme insulation are real. Treating every high-net-worth individual as a walking historical reenactment of Caligula or Stalin is not....

I’m not especially drawn to the culture that often surrounds extreme wealth, though having some means of my own makes me hesitate before offering too sharp a critique...

To quote that philosophical masterpiece Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

"You might be a king or a little street sweeper, but sooner or later you dance with the reaper,"

 

[Punchanello]

The “privileged offspring / inbred monarchy” framing is also a bit too neat. A large share of today’s highest fortunes (especially in technology) are first-generation. Founders who built companies under competitive pressure are not interchangeable with hereditary rulers who inherited legitimacy and then degraded.

Selection effects matter and people who accumulate extreme wealth in open markets are, on average, different from those who simply inherit a throne or a party apparatus.

There's plenty of evidence that vast majority of wealth is now inherited (not created) and almost without exception, the new billionaire class come from wealth backgrounds.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

The historical parallel is rhetorically satisfying and contains real patterns, but it overstates both the similarity and the inevitability. Caligula, Jiajing, and Stalin exercised near-absolute coercive power..

They controlled the state’s violence monopoly, could order executions without meaningful restraint, and faced almost no external accountability while in power. Most modern billionaires and even many “oligarchs” do not. Their power is primarily economic and soft (media, philanthropy, political donations, regulatory capture).

They can be sued, investigated, taxed, regulated, or publicly shamed in ways those earlier figures largely could not. When they do fall, it is more often through markets, courts, or reputation than through palace coups or popular uprisings that topple the entire system they built.

The “privileged offspring / inbred monarchy” framing is also a bit too neat. A large share of today’s highest fortunes (especially in technology) are first-generation. Founders who built companies under competitive pressure are not interchangeable with hereditary rulers who inherited legitimacy and then degraded.

Selection effects matter and people who accumulate extreme wealth in open markets are, on average, different from those who simply inherit a throne or a party apparatus.

Private excess and moral disinhibition are real and visible (Epstein is the obvious case). But visibility is higher now, not necessarily the underlying rate.

Historical elites also kept private depravity and we simply lacked continuous documentation and instantaneous global distribution.

The same information environment that exposes scandals also amplifies them selectively. Not every ultra-wealthy person is a secret monster; the ones who are get disproportionate attention precisely because the contrast with their public image is so useful.

Finally, the “they always become their own undoing” claim is stronger than the evidence. Some regimes and fortunes do collapse under excess and incompetence. Others adapt, professionalise management, diversify assets, buy legitimacy through philanthropy or soft power, or simply outlast the current outrage cycle. Capital today is more liquid and less personal than a Ming court or a Soviet apparatus. The system can shed individual actors without the whole structure cracking in the same dramatic way.

The corrosive effects of extreme insulation are real. Treating every high-net-worth individual as a walking historical reenactment of Caligula or Stalin is not....

I’m not especially drawn to the culture that often surrounds extreme wealth, though having some means of my own makes me hesitate before offering too sharp a critique...

Im talking about generational change mate, not specific oligarchs or rulers... ALL of the King Louis' for example, not just the one that got their pretty head lopped off

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

There's plenty of evidence that vast majority of wealth is now inherited (not created) and almost without exception, the new billionaire class come from wealth backgrounds.

Plenty of rags to riches stories I guess but most of these billionaires weren't factory workers.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

We need more education in civics.

I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing, but these scumbags tend not to be students of history or philosophy. So they rarely see the foreseeable outcome until it's too late.

Only way the kids would be interested is if some Youtuber spoke about it while unboxing a video game or football jersey mystery box.... we are lost as a society.

 

[Football us life]

To quote that philosophical masterpiece Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

"You might be a king or a little street sweeper, but sooner or later you dance with the reaper,"

True enough in the strict biological sense, but it does less work than it appears to.

Death is universal, yet the decades that precede it are not. A king (or modern equivalent) spends those years shaping institutions, extracting resources, insulating himself from ordinary consequences, and often leaving durable structures or dynasties behind. The street sweeper does not. The reaper may claim both, but one has already rewritten far more of the world before the appointment arrives.

That quote levels the final outcome while quietly ignoring the radically unequal capacity to act, harm, or build in the long interval before it. That interval is where most of the interesting differences actually live.

There's plenty of evidence that vast majority of wealth is now inherited (not created) and almost without exception, the new billionaire class come from wealth backgrounds.

That’s a fair observation, and inheritance clearly plays a larger role than the pure self-made story often implies. Many fortunes do rest on family foundations, and a comfortable starting point remains a common advantage even among those labelled self-made.

At the same time, the picture is more mixed than “almost without exception.” A meaningful share of today’s largest fortunes still reflect first-generation creation, particularly in newer industries, rather than pure hereditary transfer.

The boundary between inherited advantage and personal achievement is often blurred, and both forces operate at once. The claim captures a real tendency, just not quite as uniformly as it first appears.

Im talking about generational change mate, not specific oligarchs or rulers... ALL of the King Louis' for example, not just the one that got their pretty head lopped off

Yeah....Fair point the generational pattern is the sharper one.

Dynasties often drift and founders are filtered for drive, later heirs less so. Comfort and insulation build up across generations, as with the successive Louis. The pattern is real, even if modern fortunes have more ways to adapt or dilute it than a throne ever did.




Bashing billionaires is easy. They are large, visibly ugly and rarely liked, so the criticisms almost write themselves. That ease does not make every critique false, but it often makes them cheap maybe as a low-effort substitute for examining the deeper, less glamorous forces that actually concentrate power and insulation.

 

[Punchanello]

Bashing billionaires is easy. They are large, visibly ugly and rarely liked, so the criticisms almost write themselves. That ease does not make every critique false, but it often makes them cheap maybe as a low-effort substitute for examining the deeper, less glamorous forces that actually concentrate power and insulation.

I doubt any of us is in a position to lay a glove on a billionaire. But this isn't about bashing billionaires. It's about whether or not a society can really be democratic or just in the age of extreme wealth as we see a multibillionaire and now trillionaire class exponentially accumulating more wealth and a ten-fold chasm opening up in less that 25 years between the 2% and the other 98. That's the unprecedented part.

It's about the ethics of extreme wealth, not the individuals.

Opportunity is linked to class as you say but people can excel without it. That is quite a different conversation to what we are talking about here.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

True enough in the strict biological sense, but it does less work than it appears to.

Death is universal, yet the decades that precede it are not. A king (or modern equivalent) spends those years shaping institutions, extracting resources, insulating himself from ordinary consequences, and often leaving durable structures or dynasties behind. The street sweeper does not. The reaper may claim both, but one has already rewritten far more of the world before the appointment arrives.

That quote levels the final outcome while quietly ignoring the radically unequal capacity to act, harm, or build in the long interval before it. That interval is where most of the interesting differences actually live.




That’s a fair observation, and inheritance clearly plays a larger role than the pure self-made story often implies. Many fortunes do rest on family foundations, and a comfortable starting point remains a common advantage even among those labelled self-made.

At the same time, the picture is more mixed than “almost without exception.” A meaningful share of today’s largest fortunes still reflect first-generation creation, particularly in newer industries, rather than pure hereditary transfer.

The boundary between inherited advantage and personal achievement is often blurred, and both forces operate at once. The claim captures a real tendency, just not quite as uniformly as it first appears.



Yeah....Fair point the generational pattern is the sharper one.

Dynasties often drift and founders are filtered for drive, later heirs less so. Comfort and insulation build up across generations, as with the successive Louis. The pattern is real, even if modern fortunes have more ways to adapt or dilute it than a throne ever did.




Bashing billionaires is easy. They are large, visibly ugly and rarely liked, so the criticisms almost write themselves. That ease does not make every critique false, but it often makes them cheap maybe as a low-effort substitute for examining the deeper, less glamorous forces that actually concentrate power and insulation.

Nobody is bashing billionaires, most of us would like to be one... Its the inevitability of disruptive change that I'm talking about.

 

[Monoethnic Social Club]

I doubt any of us is in a position to lay a glove on a billionaire. But this isn't about bashing billionaires. It's about whether or not a society can really be democratic or just in the age of extreme wealth as we see a multibillionaire and now trillionaire class exponentially accumulating more wealth and a ten-fold chasm opening up in less that 25 years between the 2% and the other 98. That's the unprecedented part.

It's about the ethics of extreme wealth, not the individuals.

Opportunity is linked to class as you say but people can excel without it. That is quite a different conversation to what we are talking about here.

These ARERN'T exactly family buisness nymore.

List of largest private non-governmental companies by revenue - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Punchanello]

These ARERN'T exactly family buisness nymore.

True. And we rarely talk about private capital when we talk about wealth. We always imagine some bricks and mortar concern producing goods or services. So I understand why it can seem like bashing in that context. But that's not the reality of what we are talking about.

 

[LFC]

Tbh it’s no diff as mentioned of the richorgarlords of the past.
They were billionaires of the times.
Only diff today is that their value is online for all to see whereas not before.
MSC bang on
The 3 class’s and whatever new ones there are.
Again all that shifts is the %’s of each category.
Nothing to see here imo.
No diff to before
Look after yourself and your fam.
Good times hard times.
Some do better some moderately some lose everything.
Sink swim cruise.
Put up shut up.
Haves have nots.
Whingers takers doers goers or happy as less is more.
Bitchs so many people are today and I suspect they were just the same back in the dark ages on.