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MindMatters: Origins of the Power Elite: Inequality and "The 1%"

Elan Martin, Harrison Koehli, Corey Schink
Sott.net
Sat, 28 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC

According to Walter Scheidel in The Great Leveler, the only ways to equalize the distribution of wealth effectively have involved violence on a massive scale: famine, war, state collapse, revolution. But how did things get so inequal in the first place? Today on MindMatters we discuss the first chapter of Scheidel's book, which provides an overview of the history of inequality. From chimps and hunter-gatherers to the first farmers and the emergence of classes of elites, there has always been - and arguably always will be - inequality. But certain circumstances and practices have made things perhaps more extreme than they need to be. Especially since the advent of agriculture and the possibility of surplus production, elite classes of thieves and thugs (otherwise known as governments) have greatly exacerbated wealth inequality, and created new means accruing even more wealth and power to themselves. Join us today as we begin our discussion of inequality: is it good or bad, or both? And if it's inescapable, what can be done about its negative consequences?

Running Time: 01:15:12

Download: MP3 — 68.9 MB

Corey Schink

Corey Schink was born and raised in the Midwestern United States, where he worked on farms and as a welder, musician, and social worker. His interests in government, philosophy and history led to his writing for SOTT in 2012 and to becoming a SOTT editor and SOTT Radio co-host in 2014. He now resides in North Carolina, where he enjoys the magnificent views of the Appalachian Mountains.

Harrison Koehli

Harrison Koehli co-hosts SOTT Radio Network's MindMatters, and is an editor for Red Pill Press. He has been interviewed on several North American radio shows about his writings on the study of ponerology. In addition to music and books, Harrison enjoys tobacco and bacon (often at the same time) and dislikes cell phones, vegetables, and fascists (commies too).

Elan Martin

Born and raised in New York City, Elan has been an editor for SOTT.net since 2014 and is a co-host for MindMatters. He enjoys seeing and sharing what's true about our profoundly and rapidly changing world.

Reader Comments

Rowan Cocoan · 2019-09-28T20:27:39Z

The core concept of the future dystopian society in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four is preservation of a hierarchical form of society/order above all other matters. I've only heard the beginning and I certainly won't be surprised if that point gets discussed later in the program.

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other.

(Snip.)

But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction -- indeed, in some sense was the destruction -- of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

R.C.

Mr Reynard · 2019-09-29T02:19:15Z

Power "elite" ?

[Link]

JB17 · 2019-09-29T11:15:49Z

Mr Reynard and there are innumerable photos of them with Putin also.

Eventide · 2019-09-29T03:08:28Z

It is so hard for modern people to understand how differently the world was experienced in the past. A few hundred years ago, societal stratification may have created situations of inequality that looked similar to today, but it was really a very different situation. People were assigned their place in society based on birth. It was very rare for someone to move out of this birth-ranking, and everyone - whether high-born or low - were expected to grow into their social tasks. Some grew into responsibility for societal well-being. Some grew into laborers. They might have looked like masters and slaves, but that's not how they experienced themselves. People, with rare exceptions, didn't desire to escape the expectations society had of them based on their birth. High-born or low, you were judged on the basis of whether you carried out your societal function honorably and faithfully. Social position defined you, and money/possessions were not the drivers of 'inequality' as we experience it today, but merely the means by which resource exchanges could be resolved in expectable and agreed-upon ways.

With the rise of the Machiavellian psychology, all of this changed. Social functions were no longer in the driver's seat. Personal power and competitive prowess became the name of the game, and money/possessions became the tools that made it possible to quantify individual status over and above social obligations. We live in a society in which money relations define the capacity to take rather than exchange. There's very little social context implied. That's why fiat money systems are accepted despite their lack of sustainability. No one wants social/physical constraints on self-aggrandizement. With few exceptions, those in extreme poverty, given the opportunity, would become every bit as self-aggrandizing as the Donald Trumps of the world. The social fabric, as a structural reality one is born into and defines one's role in life, is shredded, and any attempt at rectifying social inequality must take this fact into account. There's no going back.

Wardy · 2019-10-02T08:40:23Z

The Bible has a very interesting take on the power elite: they are hand-picked by Satan, and in an active conspiracy against God and Jesus Christ. Psalm 2:2-3 [KJV] The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

After the flood, man was bought back to the stone age for a period, but just two later Nimrod had already built an empire at Babel. I don't expect things will change while Satan is god of this world.

ChewyBees · 2019-10-02T11:09:39Z

I appreciate the reference to the Psalm, though let's not give Solomon any passes on the hoarding of wealth.

The reference to the flood and whatever else the Old Testament tries to sell is absolute nonsense. I'm not saying there never was a flood and people were never remanded to a stone age existence. The bible is perhaps the most illegitimate resource of history of all books of history, including the current texts bandied about in public schools.

And the Lord did this. And God said that. And the Prophet went into the tent, and when he came out he told us all what to do according to the will of god. I read it. I wrote it down, and then I read it.

Wardy · 2019-10-02T12:31:40Z

Before you write it off, the oldest written tradition, Chinese, still remembers Noah, his 3 sons and their wives. The character for boat 船 is an ark 舟 with 8 八 persons 口. Interesting, huh.

Rowan Cocoan · 2019-10-02T18:03:56Z

Sorry: I have to post this here. Have you seen this BEAUTIFUL Italian journalist approach the podium with Pompeo and Italian PM? and use a wedge of cheese to disparage stupid American tariffs? [Link]
I'm in love! I'm flying to Italy.

R.c.

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SOTT Focus:

MindMatters: Origins of the Power Elite: Inequality and "The 1%"

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