When the rich finally secure all the nations wealth, what happens to the rest of us?

slaves or homeless.
since the corporations own the government, protections against abuse and exploitation will slowly be eliminated completely.
Slavery through contractual bondage and debt is the most likely outcome.
It would not surprise me if actual ownership based slavery would be reinstated as well.
and expect no financial help from the government, because all social safety nets will be abolished. social security, unemployment benefits, medicare, public education, educational grants, all of that will be gone.

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/koch-brothers
“Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:

“We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”
“We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
“We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”
“We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”
“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
“We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”
“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
“As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”
“We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”
“We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”
“We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”
“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”
“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”
“We demand the return of America’s railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”
“We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called “self-protection” equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”
“We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”
“We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”
“We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”
“We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”
“We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”
“We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”
“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”
”

You can try and poo,poo this but the gap between the middle and the rich is widening at an alarming rate.
We can keep blaming social programs, over sized government,but it’s happening.

I’ll be in an urn.

Nice answer @ragingloli scary but sounds plausible .

With any luck the rest of us will demand reform of the public education in the last gasp attempt to cure the cognitive goat fuck that it has created. As evidenced by the destroyed minds that cruise the Internet seeking affirmation, since objective argument is pretty much out of style if or worse politically incorrect.

Slaves. One could argue that we’re well on the way there.

I can’t believe you even said the words ‘objective argument’ on this question.

Slaves, I agree. Plus half the world will be under water due to the melting polar regions, which the Republicans seem to feel is inevitable climate fluctuation, not climate change due to pollution. In the US, our drinking water (what’s left of it) will be ruined due to fracking, and the rich will be purchasing bottled water, the poor will be fending for themselves.

We revert back to our basic animal instinct, throw logic and common sense out of the window and kill everybody.

I wish I were a liberal, the answers are always so easy. Whatever the problem, the answer is always more government control. When we were the envy of the world with our education system, we thought we could improve it by (all together now) more government control. So we created the Department of Education. Now we are 24th in the world and sinking fast, so what is the answer (all together now) more government control. We perceive a widening wealth gap problem so we elect the most liberal president in our history. We double the roles on welfare, raise taxes on the rich, pass a tsunami of regulations and the problem gets worse. So what is our solution, (all together now) more government control.

Being a liberal would be so sweet. Always the same answer, never having to analyze problems, and never even having to admit mistakes. There is no problem that more government won’t fix.

@Jaxk – it must be comforting to be a conservative. There are no problems; or rather, any problems are denied. Since there are no problems, in the conservative mind, there are no issues to address and nothing to solve.

__“Being a conservative would be so sweet. Always the same answer, never having to analyze problems, and never even having to admit mistakes. There is no problem that more tax breaks won’t fix.“__

By that time there will be no government and we will be eaten by the rich.

If the government doesn’t attempt to fix problems, who will?

When industrial waste dumped into Lake Erie in the seventies nearly killed the lake, it wasn’t private industry who cared enough to take action to reverse the trend.,

When mining, logging, automobile, and fishing industries became extensive enough to destroy ecosystems, it wasn’t private industry who cared enough to take action to reverse the trend.

It wasn’t private businesses that took action to reverse discrimination.

It wasn’t private businesses that took action to create a safety net for the truly less fortunate.

Would the railway system ever have built without land grants from the government?

Would the isolated farms in the central states still be waiting for the electrical grid to reach them if it hadn’t been for the government?

If the government hadn’t initiated positive change, who would have?

If Republicans complained that government agencies do a poor job sometimes and are in dire need of reform, I bet they would get a lot of support from Democrats. But taking the position that the private sector can fix everything and do everything better than the government, is incomprehensible to me.

SUPER GREAT answer @bossob

What it comes down to is this:
Government, in a democratic society, is the instrument of the people, to enact the will of the people.
Ideally then, the acts of government, tempered and restricted by constitutionally enshrined basic rights, are the will of the people.
Conservatives in their anti-government fervour, are against democracy.
Conservatives are against the people enacting their will.
Conservatives advocate the return to the rule of the minority over the majority.
Conservatives advocate the return to the supremacy of the aristocracy.

If you call yourself “liberal” “conservative” “libertarian” “progressive” or whatever you simply don’t get it. Blame the ideology that you don’t agree with while you are being reamed from behind by the one you do. All people seem to know is how bad the other side is. Gov’t or corporations there is no practical difference anymore. It’s all controlled by the same people. Gov’t here is completely disfunctional while corporations are running amok. It’s a total free for all. Your political leanings are something that is keeping everything this way.
The rich already have all of our wealth. Once the baby boomers die off that’s it, no more middle class.

As the middle class dissolves and the top 1% grab 60, 70, 80% or more of the wealth, there will be more and more people left with nothing to lose. A small percentage of those will be crazy enough to do something predictably unpredictable. The top dogs who walked away with the assets of defunct companies leaving the masses destitute will be left looking over the shoulders 24/7 I imagine a version of the French revolution: “Off with their heads – using drones with razors for propellers.”

@LuckyGuy I think it could very much turn that way,why do you think there is such a cry to disarm the public so much these days.

~The poor would be soylent green.~

@Jaxk In no means am I trying to be nasty or mean, but could you say with out a doubt @ragingloli post above @ARE_you_kidding_me‘s is off track and wrong and could you prove it?

For a start there will be chaos

Yes but the rich will try and crush that chaos as fast as they can, just like they crush every thing else that gets in their way as they amass their fortunes.

There really needs to be some sort of a happy middle ground if the middle class are to survive at all, the conservatives scream smaller Government,less regulations,and more tax breaks for the corporations are the answer,Sure I trust the private sector who’s only motto is max profits at all costs, sure that will save the middle class.
Is this the same private sector that says it wont do any good to up the minimum wage because we just in turn have to hike the price of goods and services so we can keep our max profits, that the private sector that will save us all??

The private sector says wages will go up when there is not enough man power to fill those jobs.
The private sector has already shown that is a lie, because if they can’t get citizens to fill those low end jobs they will hire foreign workers at a lower wage to fill those positions so that isn’t true as well.
More deregulation that is the answer, what’s next ?Safe work places can’t have that it just costs to much, oh I know more tax breaks for corporations the money they save they will hire more people, sure look how well that worked,as they took those savings all the way to the bank,maybe they will put on more staff during the next roll of tax breaks,I won’t hold my breath.
Now to much Government isn’t good either, it becomes horribly inefficient and a huge waste of tax payers dollars,but the same people screaming for smaller Government,is being subsidized by them, by getting away with their workers needing government help just to put food on the table after a 40 hour work week.
If the private sector will save the middle class,than fucking prove it ,they have failed in the past and nothing that I have seen says they really want to this round either.

This isn’t really a concern for the wealthy. It is food stamps. It is supply and demand. There are people monitoring your breaking point just like they pay people to figure out how much you will pay for the Kraft dinner before switching to another brand. They will pay more when they think you might hurt them if they walk down the street. And we are nowhere close to that. There is a concerted effort to pit the poor against the poor.

I was just forced to spend a few hours with my cousin that works 40 hours in a factory sawing wood. He makes 20K a year. He wasn’t pissed at his boss for paying so little. He was pissed at the people getting food stamps. SQUIRREL

@Jaxk Well needless to say, your perspective on our situation differs considerably from my own, beginning with that “one of the most liberal Presidents” thing. Obama only appears a liberal to conservatives because the right in this country has veered of the chart. The truth is that Barack in ALL of his policies and utterances is somewhere to the right of Richard Nixon, a man who advocated among other things SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, created the EPA, expanded entitlement programs, etc.

Then there’s your assertion that “we” raised taxes on the rich. My take on that is “what difference does it make if the rich don’t pay them?” And this brings us to the point you seem to miss. While the rich as a class love to whine about the evils of nasty, bungling, confiscatory government, they are the only segment of the population raking in the dough. This single fact puts the lie to your argument on government inability to “get things done”, because I put it to you that is not possible for the rich to get richer under any and all circumstances without the active participation and whole hearted enthusiasm of the GOVERNMENT in streering the money to the top. In fact the government has been SO successful in this endeavor, that the welfare rolls have doubled (as you noted). No leap of insight should be necessary to appreciate ( to paraphrase Squeek) that more for them MUST mean less for us. The truth is that the rich should shut up about all of those handouts to the “undeserving” poor, because is those handouts alone that mask the enormity of the ever growing disparity involved with the greatest theft and transfer of wealth in the history of the world.

But @stanleybmanly the lions can’t help it,if it’s that damn Antelopes fault.

The hourglass turns.

congress feels your pain, a living wage is important.

If anybody has seen any of the “Hunger Games” movies, it will be like that. The rich will be living in a centralized city with a banquet of the best food and drink, colorful clothes, the latest technology. The poor will be squandering for food, starving, eating squirrels and other rodents, no medical care, clothing ripped and drab, and at the mercy of the rich.

If, as they say, history repeats itself, then before wealth disparity becomes a doomsday scenario, there will be a worldwide event(s) that resets the nation’s priorities.

In the past it has been a major war or a major depression that reversed the trends similar to where we’re at. But in the future it could be an environmental crises, a pandemic, or who knows what else, that forces us to reaffirm that the welfare of the many supersedes the benefits to the few.

It always stinks the worse when you’re in the middle of a shit storm.

@stanleybmanly – Sorry, I lost my entire post and don’t have the energy to try and recreate. There is very little on this thread that could be considered rational debate and I don’t have the time to refute all the hysterical end of the world rantings contained herein. The main difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals look at wealth as a fixed pie. Wealth, like energy, can be neither created nor destroyed but only redistributed. If I make an extra buck, I must have taken it from someone. Conservatives believe that wealth expands with new idea, new products and new services. That competition makes our products and services better, safer, cheaper. Government should encourage that rather than limiting it.

Capitalism needs a middle class. Socialism does not. Capitalism needs prosperity, Socialism does not. You’re all voting for your own demise. And that’s a shame.

Well your Capitalism is doing it’s best to crush the middle class at the sake of the upper class.
I have no problem with you earning that extra buck,as long as it wasn’t off the backs of your minimum wage earners who in turn need that evil over sized Government just to put food on their table at the end of their work week.
Seems to me Capitalism doesn’t need a middle class as much as it needs a working poor class that it can exploit.
Socialism treats everyone equal, Capitalism just looks after those at the top.
I am in no means advocating one or the other, just saying both have their good points along with their bad.

@Jaxk Let’s look at that for a second. You’re wrong that liberals consider wealth as a fixed pie. Wealth can increase and be created. Where liberals and conservatives differ is on who is responsible for the creation of wealth. The capitalist will claim that wealth is created through investment, while the liberal will tell you it is labor that generates wealth. Both are correct. Southerners lived the capitalist ideal. They invested in slaves, and realized enormous returns on their investments from UNPAID LABOR. But times have changed. Wealth is still being created through investment, however those investments have ever more to do with the utilization of capital to TRANSFER WEALTH from the non rich uphill to the those at the top. This is now the PREFERRED method for making your fortune. And it is at this point that I agree with you on the bad side of entitlements in masking the process because the wealthy could not pull it off without government support for those being bled. It is indeed our rising debt that allows the rich to accumulate all that wealth. The rage now in American capitalism is about UTILIZATION of GOVERNMENT FINANCE IN THE TRANSFER OF WEALTH. Once more it is the privatization of profit and the socialization of expenses. That rising debt associated with entitlements is about the ruling class no longer requiring the LABOR of employees in order to build fortunes. To refute your argument, it is clearly evident that prosperity may be preferred by everyone, it is NOT required however for the enrichment of capitalists, otherwise we’re living through the most prosperous time the country has ever seen.