Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id576324276
All for ourselves and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” “The Wealth of Nations”
✏️ It does “seem” to be the case that human elite eventually come to this maxim. The question is, is this representative of humanity? Are humans greedy when given too much? Always? Are humans kind and communal when not given too much? Where are the lines? How often or rarely is this true? #followup 🔗 View Highlight
id576324641
America has, roughly speaking, three classes. At the top are today’s great proprietors. The basis of their wealth is no longer mainly held in land but in direct ownership of their own businesses plus financial instruments including corporate stocks and bonds. The top 1 percent owns over half of U.S. corporate stock. The people just below them are no longer attendants and retainers but technocrats. They’re the people who go to school to develop the specialized skills that are necessary to keep society running day to day: doctors, lawyers, scientists, computer programmers, engineers. (Journalists are also technocrats but among the weakest of the group.) The rest of the top 10 percent — i.e., the 9 percent — owns almost all the rest of U.S. corporate stock. Then there’s everyone else. They’re no longer tenant farmers, but they still have to get up every day and clock in at Home Depot and Walgreens and Chipotle to cultivate the possessions of the great proprietors. This working class has the least leverage and the fewest options.
✏️ The three classes.. proprietors (1%), retainers/technocrats (9%) and working class/everyone else (90%). 🔗 View Highlight