MULTI-MILLIONAIRE SEES REVOLUTION COMING

Multi-millionaire Nick Hanauer is no dummy. He sees the writing on the wall.

“And what do I see in our future now?

“I see pitchforks.

“At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country — the 99.99 percent — is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top one percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom half shared about 18 percent. Today, the top 1 percent [of the U.S. population] share about 20 percent; the bottom half, just 12 percent.

“But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.

“And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

“No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counter-examples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.

Nick Hanauer, “The Pitchforks Are Coming for Us Plutocrats,” Politico Magazine "The pitchforks are coming . . . for us Plutocrats"