Note: This is a response to an article by Mr. Peterson, not a summary or a review.
I have just read an article by Angus Peterson. It is published in Edge of Collapse and I would like to discuss it here. The article is titled "The Rich are Hoarding Wealth Because They Know What’s Coming." The subtitle is Collapse is baked into their business plans.
The article begins with an A.I. generated image (not the one above, but similar) of wealthy men, and they’re all men, holding flutes of Champagne surrounded by piles of cash and gold bricks, eating the best food while outside of their enclosure is a city up in flames, abandoned cars, with a flood of desperate people stand in water up to their knees.
These elitists inside the enclosed area aren’t paying attention to them. That’s because they don’t care. They have everything they want, all the world’s wealth, all good things to eat and the best clothes, so why should they care if the rest of the world starves.
Why should they indeed? Because all of the disasters happening outside of their little world is going to catch up with them. They will come in, invade them, the elite in these refuges will become helpless, and all of their wealth will be worth absolutely nothing. The catastrophe will break through their glass enclosures, start to burn everything (illustrated above) and these aristocrats will start to run, abandoning their now worthless wealth, running out into the world with no means to survive.
Yes, they will be protected while basking in their refuges, but it will only be temporary. Fate will catch up with them and they will be the last to experience the disasters that they themselves have created - and it will overwhelm them.
It is then they will finally realize what they have done, but then it will be too late.
This is where we are headed - climate change, rivers drying up, intensifying storms, heat waves, sea levels rising, overpopulation, famines, wars, wildfires, floods, plagues, along with some now unimaginable disasters. The rich know all this, and they are deliberately accelerating this process.
They want all this to happen. What they don’t know is that it will all backfire on them and they will drown in their own schemes. They will be the last to go, but they will go nonetheless. They will be unable to escape all this because the disasters will cover the entire globe, and there will be nowhere to escape.
Can the problem of climate change be solved? Absolutely. We have the ways and means to absorb excess carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and to replant our forests and jungles and apply thousands of other methods, big and small, that have been proven to work. The technology of renewable energy has been around for decades; solar, wind, sea, biomass, among others, but not much money is being invested in all this.
Note here that they have their enclave with piles of wealth, with skip loaders mining for more. It is the workers that are mining them, with fires and factories polluting the air, but the elite party on as if nothing is happening. They’re right; nothing is happening to them, until their day of reckoning.
They, meaning the wealthy, are still investing massively in fossil fuels. What’s more, they know full well that all this is causing climate change, and they know that we’ve reached a critical mass with these fuels.
They also know that continued use of these fuels will mean destruction of Earth’s biosphere, but they are still investing in them anyway, and divesting in the alternatives. They are even trying to stop the alternative/renewable industry from being marketing on a massive scale.
Why? They are profiting from these causes of collapse and they want to continue to profit from them. They know that this is causing the Earth to be rendered uninhabitable, but again, they don’t care.
They want chaos and they want huge masses of Earth’s population to die off and/or live in extreme poverty. They won’t be a part of this. They will be protected in their little enclaves, away from all the disaster that is happening.
As the rich are getting richer, they are settling up their little enclaves, whether they be islands in the Caribbean or in the South Pacific, villas out in Switzerland or the Canadian (or U.S.) Rockies, any isolated but beautiful scenery, places that are the most expensive to buy and then setting up protected areas around them, stocking up food and the basic necessities, their gold, jewelry, all luxury items they own, that would keep them going for what they think would be forever.
All this to protect themselves from world wide disaster.
The rich know all this is coming and they are doing nothing to stop it. If they wanted to, they can use their wealth to not only stop this from happening, but could help set up a new infrastructure to help reverse the direction we are on to disaster, and still have plenty of wealth left over for themselves, but they will not do it.
They don't want this to happen. They want the Earth to heat up, sea levels to rise, hurricanes to get worse and destroy more cities and towns, more people to die. They don’t care.
If they are making $100 million a day, and they are, and they have the means to finance engineering projects to stave off disaster, why aren’t they doing anything?
Because they want power, and money means power.
Comedians often joke about The Golden Rule, which is “He who has the gold, makes the rules!” There is a lot of truth in that.
The billionaire class wants power, power to rule others , and they don’t care how many people die in the process.
When, they feel, all is over, they, the protected few, will hire people from the outside to serve them and run whatever is left of their business.
These people would be their obedient workers, their servants, and the workers would obey, because they have families, and they would do whatever is necessary to survive, even submit to their oppressors.
Let’s say 20% of the Earth’s population will serve the elite, which will only consist of one percent of the Earth’s population. Out of a population of a little over eight billion, that’s a total of 2.64 billion.
What will become of the remaining 79 percent of Earth’s population, meaning 5.36 billion people?
They will wander the globe, scavenging what they could find. They will turn on each other, possibly resorting to cannibalism, or just killing others to get what they desperately need. Eventually, they will die off completely, leaving the wealthy elite with their piles and money and gold in their protected enclaves, with the remaining 20 percent of Earth’s population becoming serfs, serving the elite, forever.
Or so they think. What will really happen?
First, of all, if they have a plan on letting the vast majority of Earth’s population die off, that amounts to mass murder, pure and simple. No one or group of people has that right. It is evil, inhuman, and the burden will be on these elitists, even if they never touch them, even if they never see them. What does that make them?
They are playing God.
Does all this this sound far fetched? Does this sound like some sort of science fiction disaster film? No, because this is what the billionaires really want, and they are trying to achieve it right now.
Look at what is happening in Washington DC right now. Just look at the agenda of the Donald Trump and Elon Musk Administration.
Many of the Americans who voted Trump back into office were working class and middle class people. They have been fed the big lie about how they, the Trump Administration, will improve the economy and end their suffering, by promising jobs. Many of these voters listened. They will follow anyone who tells them what they want to hear, even if these politicians have lied to them in the past, and when they finally take office, or in Trump’s case, return to office, they renege on their promises.
As a result, they have voted in an authoritarian government. This is simply because of economic instability, political extremism, and societal fracture. The workers, if they do find work, get employed by the fossil fuel or any other polluting industry. Anti-pollution laws, passed for the safety of the people living in these areas, are abolished. Resources are mined in the most environmentally sensitive ecosystems, such as the Arctic or the African jungle. Many species soon slide into extinction.
None of this matters to the rich who owns these companies, or to the people working at these jobs as long as they can get a paycheck, and for the rich, more and bigger profits.
We are consuming resources faster than we can replenish them. We are destroying fossil fuels, resulting in more pollution; destroying topsoil used for farming, lessoning our food supply; consuming minerals, and poisoning the Earth’s freshwater supply.
Meanwhile, the economy is still collapsing, leading to economic despair and to the erosion of democracy, taking away more of our freedoms.
Workers are being overworked, physically exhausted, and unable to pay their bills, even with two full time jobs.
The educational system is being destroyed, and workers, along with the middle class, can no longer afford an education for themselves or their children, preventing them to advance in the job market. These people will be reduced to disposable labor units. In other words, serfs or slaves.
The Ruling Class wants it this way. They will then pillage what little wealth remains in the working class, after taking away all their other benefits.
The ultra-wealthy don’t just want more money, the want absolute control of everything. This system in operation right now is designed to fail everyone except the ultra-wealthy.
To them, this all sounds well and good, except for one thing. It’s not going to work. It’s been done before throughout history, and every time, it’s led to chaos, and this time it won’t be any different.
One of the reasons why Rome fell was because of its extreme inequality between the rich and the poor.
In France, in the late 1700s, the aristocracy, meaning the Monarchy, under King Louis XVI, hoarded wealth while the people of France, especially in Paris, starved. The “peasants” rose up, ignited the French Revolution, stormed the Bastille and then the Versailles. Later, King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded. The Reign of Terror began, where the aristocrats were hunted down throughout the French Empire, taken to the guillotine and beheaded amongst cheering crowds.
Russia, during the time of the Tsar, exploded because of an isolated elite ignoring mass suffering for too long, until the First Russian Revolution occurred, and then it was too late. Much the the elite had their wealth confiscated and put before a firing squad.
The elite, sitting at a party, then disaster in the form of a fire and flood comes in and invades their sanctuary. Their wealth cannot save them.
Do you think it can’t happen here, in the U.S.? We are heading in that direction.
Today’s billionaires are sitting atop mountains of wealth beyond comprehension and they want more. They want people’s Social Security; they want to abolish Medicare and Medicaid; they want to take away soldier’s benefits, soldiers who fought and died to protect people like them. They want to abolish all forms healthcare, and pocket all the proceeds from all these programs for themselves. They want to take as much money as they can from the poor and middle-class and keep it all for themselves, through no taxes for the rich.
Wealth is being extracted from the many, both the working and middle class, and consolidated into the hands of the few.
They are hoarding all wealth and resources.
The rich will end up with everything, the rest of us will end up with nothing. Many people will die and the rich will not care.
This, however, is not sustainable!
Their enclaves still need the basic necessities. Their food will have to come from somewhere. What will the farms be like? With droughts and floods ruining all the good land, will they be able to grow more? The cattle is dying off, where will they get their meat? Where will they get seafood, in a heated and toxic ocean? Who will provide all this for them?
They think they will be protected from a deteriorating planet.
They think the lessons of history won’t apply to them.
It will!
Natural disasters will hit the enclaves. People living on islands in the Caribbean or the South Pacific will be swept away by powerful hurricanes, typhoon, and tsunamis. Other refuges will be flooded or destroyed by wildfires. No place on this Earth will be safe.
Also, when all the farm lands deteriorates, where will they get their food? The serfs/workers aren’t going to do it, and if they do, they won’t share it with the wealthy. They will rebel.
How will these wealthy elite hunt for food? Imagine a scene where they try to do so.
Their power sources will have to be off-the-grid. Where will they get their energy to run their
appliances?
Where will they get their basic necessities, soap, toilet paper, medicines? Where will they get their clean water? Who will do their repairs when they need help?
Will it be the serfs? How are the serfs going to feel after a certain amount of time, as they realize that the elite are treating them like dirt and will end up living in squalid conditions. Will they put up with it?
Who is going to protect the elite if the military is busy elsewhere, or if the military themselves are dying on the fields of war?
Their own protected society will collapse and they will be exposed to the very elements they created. They will also never be able to kill off Earth’s population by neglect of any other means.
What then?
The people working for them, the serfs, will realize the situation they are in and see it deteriorating.
The vast majority of people they shut out, that the elite are trying to kill off, will also realize what is happening and will hunt to the rich in their protected environments. I can’t even imagine what they will do when they find these enclaves and refuges, and they will find them.
Remember the storming of Versailles?
Remember the First Russian Revolution?
What will happen then?
Look at all the illustrations in this essay where chaos finally invades these sheltered enclaves, and how they, the elite, react. They will panic, not knowing what to do.
THIS WILL HAPPEN!
The rich may be creating their enclaves and isolated habitats now while the world deteriorates all around them (and remember, they want all this to happen).
They may live in luxury for a while when everything else is destroyed, but it will not last.
They will be the last to get it, they will be the last victim of worldwide catastrophe, but it will catch up with them.
Trouble is, they do not think that far ahead, and they do not learn from history. This has happened before during the Middle Ages, and they haven’t succeeded then and they won’t succeed now.
Can all this be prevented?
Yes!
First, it’s time they join the human race.
Second, they must realize that they cannot hoard all their wealth. It will soon be worthless.
Third, they must realize that ignoring the four fifths of the human race, letting them die off is still mass murder, even if they don’t take part in the process.
Last of all, if they have the mean to use their wealth to deal with many of the problems we have, they should do so.
Remember my first point - join the human race!
Wealth is a tool, not a lap of luxury. If they were to just bask in their wealth, it will destroy them, and their children.
If they were to make a great contribution to humanity, via construction projects, new medicines, new forms of energy, or just cleaning up the Earth, and the list goes on, they could achieve greatness.
They don’t have to use it all. They could set aside plenty of their vast wealth to use for themselves, to use in whatever way they choose.
Don’t lock yourselves away in a bubble. Join the human race.
Most of all, stop taking money from everyone else. Stop taking people’s Social Security, retirement funds, pensions, healthcare, and insurance.
Stop being greedy. You don’t need any of that. This is what many of them are doing. Much of their wealth is unearned; it was given to them. Many of them cheated for it. Many of them robbed the poor.
Give it back, you won’t miss it.
Do something good for humanity. Your wealth is a tool. Use it that way.
Alastair Browne
Sources:
There are three essays on which this is based, all from one author, Angus Peterson, but he is making comments on the present while I am looking beyond his commentaries and foreseeing what will happen afterward, when the elite have everything they want, including power.
What I am saying here is that it’s not going to last and they will be swept up in the sheer chaos along with the rest of the world.
All three essays from which this is based are by Angus Peterson, from Edge of Collapse, a series of essays found on Medium.com.
“The Rich are Hoarding Wealth Because they Know What’s Coming - Collapse is baked into their business plans.”
“The Economic Stranglehold That Fuels the Polycrisis - How financial despair leads to authoritarianism.”
“Doomer or Realist? The fear of truth will not change the future, except for the worse.”
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