@bathsheba @davidtheeviloverlord @dbattistella the modern billionaire class was created by poor and working-class white supremacist voters angry at MLK & Civil Rights. These suicidally stupid voters left unions and the Democratic Party. They are incessantly cutting taxes on billionaires, and aren't slowing down at all, 60 yrs after Civil Rights. Billionaires are the beneficiaries and the effect, NOT the cause. Similarly, billionaires are NOT why most white women vote no to reproductive rights.

@dbattistella

Six years ago, some tech-bro working for a billionaire invented a slop machine he called "A.I.", even though it isn't.
And we all got poorer, because all the art and writing was stolen to feed the slop machine.
And all the electricity was stolen to feed the slop machine.
And all the drinking water was stolen to feed the slop machine.
A gentle reminder that all civilisational wealth is stolen by billionaires.

@davidtheeviloverlord @dbattistella AI is bringing benefits in medicine and many other fields. And it's getting better at those fields. The problems we're having with AI aren't coming from billionaires. They're coming bigots who refuse to regulate billionaires & corps, and who keep cutting taxes on them.

@jonesmurphy news flash the bigots *are* the billionaires. They have captured government and are having deregulation, tax cuts, and their eugenic agenda carried out to their orders. With enthusiastic participation from ideologues,, to be sure, but it's the billionaire money making it happen.
@davidtheeviloverlord @dbattistella

@bathsheba @davidtheeviloverlord @dbattistella I have bad news for you and for this extremely popular, false narrative. During and shortly after Civil Rights, billionaire wealth reached its lowest-ever share of national wealth. That was due to the 90% top tax rate from FDR onward, as well as strong unions and soaring minimum wage ever since FDR. The New Deal era was an era of massive downward redistribution of wealth. It caused an economic boom, and sharply decreased billionaire political power.

@dbattistella

He and other ultra rich do realise they depend on the efforts of others to achieve their wealth. Otherwise why would Musk threaten to fire anyone who booked off suck during the pandemic? Why would the Bezos conglomerate fight unions so harshly? They realize they are nothing without the work of so many others.
But, they try to sell us the opposite: that those who underwrite their wealth are worthless …
And we buy it - With our own coin.

@dbattistella hey, I agree with the sentiment, but the

“Collectivism is how we survived and progressed as a species”

sentiment comes originally from Peter Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid”. It’s an important book that deserves to be cited directly, not the least due to its context as an assault on the idea of Social Darwinism.

I’m sure the other author you attributed it to is a nice person doing important work as well.

@flowb Thanks, I'll check out "Mutual Aid"