Comment by jajko
20 hours ago
Sociopaths being sociopaths, there is nothing more to it. One should never assume those who rose to massive power and wealth on their own are anything else but that. There are few exceptions, or rather well-meaning sociopaths, but they are really an exception.
The idea that they only got there by doing a bit of hard honest work is brutally naive. Its a sad fact of life, but fact it is. Looking at world with such optics, there are hardly any surprises (and no its not all doom and gloom, rather just factual reality with very few disappointments down the line).
What we call "power" is not a property of a person, but a function of networks of relationships. A king is only "powerful" insofar as his authority is recognized. The moment his perceived authority is lost, the moment no one or few recognize it, is the moment he no longer has "power".
In other words, it only works if there is enough social support for it. It requires our complicity.
Most people with ASPD (what you call sociopathy) are not able to build these sorts of networks. They're impulsive. They are over-represented among the homeless. They are poor at planning or foreseeing the consequences of their actions. These are not exactly conducive to building these social networks. A sociopath is more the street thug or the gangbanger and less the CEO of a corporation.
It's the idea that class warfare will get us anywhere good that's brutally naive at this point.
What do you define as “class warfare?” Do you agree that the current status-quo hyper-consolidation of wealth our economy has fostered since act least 1972 is already an ongoing type of class warfare?
And finally, why do you think class warfare can’t get us anywhere?
Class warfare is already happening from the top down.
I love it when enforcing laws and fairness is perceived as "class warfare."
I think class warfare will get the working class further than whatever is being done at the moment honestly.
...why? How?
Have you seen any history at all? This has never worked.
Cohesive, trusting societies get much further than ones that are at war with themselves. Even so, cohesion and trust are nice-to-haves.
Tech progress and GDP growth has meant that the world's poor live better lives, decade after decade, for many centuries now.
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Warfare is dumb.
The class struggle is a perspective. It points to how blind rich people are to social issues, and how blind the poor are to economic issues. These two need the struggle, gently. Without it, there is either bloody revolution or cruel autocracy.
That's as simple as it gets. Many people get it wrong.
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