Why Don’t More of Our Unequal Societies Implode?

Question

Some discouragement here…with apologies…I seem to be seeing the dark side of life lately.

But this question was asked by Katherine Boo, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, in her book about a Mumbai undercity; “After all, there are more poor people than rich people in the world’s Mumbais…”

So we poor folk postpone taking action until conditions are thoroughly unlivable, then a violent revolt…and then end up with something maybe even worse, like the Soviet Union!

As one person posted recently here on SOLVED,

"…I think the horrible despotisms that followed the collapse of the royal houses of Russia, Germany and China may well have been historically necessary consequences of the political chaos that followed. Only desperate and ruthless people like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao would have been willing to take the near-impossible chances to seize power."

Read more: http://www.ihavesolved.com/34232/who-is-the-most-powerful-empire-in-the-history#ixzz4fiqzJQWg

So, why do we humankind wait SO long to act, why don’t the unequal societies demand balance sooner?

Answer 1

Because it's a very risky undertaking, given that the powers that be usually suppress such uprisings violently, so no one wants to be first, until an unpredictable tipping point is reached, as in chaos theory.

And then the ruthless people take advantage of the situation, like that 'rat' Robespierre (as Danton styled him, as Danton was being led to the guillotine).

An exception was the fall of European communism. What was so surprising was not so much that it collapsed, but that its leadership went as quietly as it did.

Sang the overweight coloratura

(In the days of the Soviets' last urrah) :

"The fall of the wall

Was welcomed by all,

Except for the Nomenklatura."

Answer 2

+OtherTink...(your reply button is not working)

Yes, the risky undertaking...I have actually done that, 'thrown myself under the train,' so to speak to take a stand for others...and the consequences are indeed very harsh. Since I was seventy the last time I did this, the retaliation was not physically violent, but loss of home, income... whatever it takes.

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I like your invocation of chaos theory...probably highly applicable to these situations...and the Fat Lady Singing is wonderful! But now, look at Putin! That stuff is not gone...harassing Jehovah's Witness, etc.

Comments

@ Virginia,

You lost your home?  I don't mean to pry, but how did that happen as a result of political activity?

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's okay...I have actually put this online before with confreres from Ask.com as well as Blurt...

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I was in senior housing; low-ethics management came in and promised (in writing) that rents would not be raised if everyone would just sit tight during renovations, and allow without protest a shift from HUD monitoring to less rigid tax credit funding. 

Renovations were brutalizing, one tenant committed suicide...several more died needlessly.

Meanwhile, construction was carried out totally with profit goals; the beautiful building got trashed by cheap, non-functional alterations.

Then, rents started up; sometimes as much as 44%. A few tenants had incomes around $700, and when their rent went up like that, and too old, ill, weak, and poor to move, it can be a death sentence. And no one really notices ... old ill senile people might die anytime, what difference?

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Well, I took my stand, got Legal Aid went to court, got evicted. I will always be glad, could not have done it any other way...but then lived homeless for ten months. Actually, I am resilient and quite enjoyed those homeless months, but I am not typical. The old people could stand with me only weakly, I was basically alone. But my housemates shed plenty of tears behind closed doors.

btw, these management folks were hard line Republicans all, contributing heavily to The Party to protect their rights of "free enterprise"...and they did not break any laws legally, only moral decrepitude.

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@ Virginia,

Oh, wow, that's just awful that those morally bankrupt a*sholes would treat anyone that way, especially the old and the sick. I admire what you did no end.

I have never had to make any sacrifices like that, and I hope I would have the courage to do so if the situation arose.

It was not always so in my family. My grandparents and great-grandparents left Germany in the mid-30s, when what the Nazis were doing became intolerable. I learned German at my Grandma's knee and heard many stories of what Germany was like in the 20s and 30s, The inflation, street fighting, the brief Spartacist (communist) takeover of Munich, and other attempted coups, the Great Depression, with 40% joblessness, the rise of Nazism, and throughout, crooked politicians of all stripes looking out for themselves rather than for the people they were supposed to be serving.

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ty OtherTink, I found that you do it knowing you cannot really "win," but you take action something like a prayer...acting out what you know is honorable...

Nazi Germany an uniquely horrific conundrum, set in motion by the vindictiveness of the Treaty of Versailles; lots of folks had difficulty sorting that one out, at least initially. Good for those folks of yours, they saw clearly as we now know in retrospect, and they took appropriate action.

Answer 3

I have read your discussion and was deeply moved, remembering that also in our civilised cultures, great wealth and power and especially property were and are mainly built on injustices, crimes, usurpation, corruption, neglect, fanatism, fraud and the senseless wasting of vital resources. Great cultures were and still are built on "blood, sweat and tears", and the public saw/sees rarely the misery and the violence occurring "behind closed doors".

There is no sustainability in fast and big profit business, or in enormous empires, which gamble worldwide with millions and billions of lives.

http://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/consequences_of_depletion_of_natural_resources

Some links for comparison:

http://www.freemaninstitute.com/RTGdecline.htm

https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/decline-and-fall-empires

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-23/how-empires-collapse

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/05/why-empires-fall-ancient-rome-putins-russia

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-economic-empires-collapse-2016-2?IR=T

further:

http://www.overpopulationawareness.org/en/articles/sustainability-and-population-growth-as-a-global-problem

http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/3_times_sustainable

And here's one of the important fails of too big "empires" - the many scandals on smaller and broader levels, whether in homes for elderly people (for children, in schools, in hospitals, in industries, trade, etc.) suspected and known since very long (I checked for info in English, but they occur everywhere):

http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-27217218/secret-filming-finds-care-home-abuse

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-cruellest-care-home-institutional-abuse-contributed-to-deaths-of-five-pensioners-8889770.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Wales_child_abuse_scandal

About the dirty business in property markets:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/london-property-market-real-estate-money-laundering-overseas-foreign-buyers-mps-a7138176.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290702/The-inside-secrets-real-estate-agents-TV-investigation-exposes-shocking-tricks-used-buy-sell-houses.html

Sorry, I am emotional today - my thoughts and prayers are with you!

Comments

Hi Marianne,

Again, your links are remarkable, even though I did not read them all...I am curious, do you find them anew each question, by Googling? Or, are these links that you are often already familiar with? For example, this below...

...men who, in Victorian times, may well have devoted their lives to serving the empire — had walked away from their posts with disgust for the entire enterprise. Ferguson sees a similar pattern among American elite in the 2010s, concluding that, "maybe the real threat is posed not by the rise of China, Islam or CO2 emissions, but by our own loss of faith in the civilization we inherited from our ancestors."

I am myself beginning to wonder if capitalism as an economic system might be fatally flawed, cultivating the worst within its participants, thus leading inevitably downward.

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Hello, Virginia

Yes, I am "googling" and consulting old and new sites (I noted or memorised certain useful links and references, of course, but there are always new sites or updatings too), and checking different data (at least in the languages which I can understand), and comparing them, as translations are not always reliable, and the languages themselves are also evolving.

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Marianne, 

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Virginia