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Showing Original Post only (View all)The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats By NICK HANAUER From Politico Magazine [View all]
This is a really good read & he is spot on.
You probably dont know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industriesfrom itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways Im no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans cant even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what Im talking about. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my familys business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enoughand that time wasnt far offpeople were going to shop online like crazy. Goodbye, Caldor. And Filenes. And Borders. And on and on.
Many of us think were special because this is America. We think were immune to the same forces that started the Arab Springor the French and Russian revolutions, for that matter. I know you fellow .01%ers tend to dismiss this kind of argument; Ive had many of you tell me to my face Im completely bonkers. And yes, I know there are many of you who are convinced that because you saw a poor kid with an iPhone that one time, inequality is a fiction.
Heres what I say to you: Youre living in a dream world. What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that were somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time. Any student of history knows thats not the way it happens. Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then theres no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. Thats the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terriblefor everybody. But especially for us.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#ixzz35qMb4eeA