History is Simply the Top 10 vs. the Next 90

by phil on Sunday Jan 27, 2013 12:56 AM

History is ultimately about the cannabalization of the Top 10 wealthiest by the next 90 wealthiest. The rest is just footnotes. This is the essential pattern that emerges from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. The American Revolution was just a war between the New Rich (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, et. al) and a few British landowners. The Civil War was just a war between the New Northern Rich and the few slaveholding landowners who owned most of the South. Continuing with this pattern, the Great Recession of 2008 was just a war between Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers (with Goldman Sachs winning, gloriously).

Cash is inherently bubble-producing. "Nothing makes money like money," as the saying goes, and so as the rich become the ultra-rich, they eventually create a tumor. The situation is unsustainable, and when the bubble pops, the second layer of wealthy individuals are ready to reclaim the seized territory or government handouts.

The rest of history is simply about the minimal goods that the rich can give the poor to keep the system in tact.