You can’t eat money. They might live comfortably for longer but eventually they’ll be just as turbo fucked as we are.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s an apartheid.
Their wealth can protect them from climate change, so they have no good reason to change their behavior.
nehal3m@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not soon enough, they won’t, unfortunately.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Increasingly I think it actually might protect them. Not in a postapocalyptic bunker or a private island but rather in the upper echelons of a less climate-striken country. One where there’s still a functioning society, enough labor to sustain an economy and a compliant political and law enforcement classes happy to maintain some form of apartheid. The Arabian peninsula countries could be a model.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Oh, definitely. In most countries the wealthy can simply buy citizenship.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
The thing why I am not 100% sure this will work is that the wealthy especially today increasingly hold abstract wealth. It’s in the form of money and other financial instruments. All of those are IOUs owed to them in labor. In other words it’s only meaningful because someone will accept these IOUs in order to do some work in exchange. This is even true for natural resources and more automated services because all of them require some amount of labor to extract or maintain. With that in mind, say the source countries where these IOUs commanded labor fall apart (mass death, political upheaval, etc) then they go with these IOUs to Qatar to Uncle Putin to purchase a citizenship. Putin could accept those IOUs in exange for a citizenship. However he wouldn’t be able to buy anything with them from because they are no longer accepted. So why would he take the wealthy person? Surely he isn’t so naive to believe every wealthy person is actually as valuable in their ability as their wealth. So I’m thinking, and I’m not confident in this thought, but I feel like its possible that the first wave might be able to buy its way into Traditional Values Federation, while the global economy isn’t dead yet. As things start to crumble, it’ll get harder and harder to do so. Perhaps in the later rounds of the lottery, only people who have some other type of capital, not financial, would qualify. E.g. a guy from ASML with all the blueprints to build 1nm lithography machines. In fact, even if financial capital is accepted in exchange for citizenships it will probably not be accepted in the landing country in order to prevent it from being deployed against the existing political class. Adding a lot of billionaires in Russia and letting them spend domestically can dismantle the regime that let them in.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It could be you’re right.
I don’t think anyone can really say how it will work out in the end, but I am comfortable in saying I’m sure the wealthy will survive it unscathed.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
The problem is that these are not “IOUs” but paper printed by the most violent empire in history.
People will be violently forced to serve just like they always have been.
veganpizza69@lemmy.vg 3 weeks ago
As long as the markets are open, the “free market” will ensure that they comfortable. That’s the purpose of the free market. They only suffer when markets close (and their money becomes useless).
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Why do you think these creeps are so exciting about building walls and murdering refugees?
Fortress europe and fortress canada must be defended against the desperate masses.