Summary
In his farewell speech, President Joe Biden warned of a growing “oligarchy” in the U.S., where extreme wealth and power threaten democracy.
Comparing modern elites to 19th-century robber barons, he called for reforms to hold the wealthy accountable, as done in the past.
Biden also criticized a “tech-industrial complex” concentrating power and spreading disinformation, weakening democracy.
His remarks sparked a surge in Google searches for “oligarchy.”
The speech comes amid rising concerns about policies favoring billionaires, like Trump’s tax cuts and potential cuts to social safety programs.
Becoming…? The country founded on the principle that only landowners and capitalists should be represented democratically is becoming an oligarchy?
Yes, because the early USA did not resemble an modern oligarchy but rather a plutocracy which despite its problems still has greater room for a merit based system than a modern oligarchy provides. We are intentionally concentrating a tremendous amount of wealth in the hands of very few people.
Plutocracy = rule by the wealthy.
Oligarchy = rule by the few.
The wealthy are the few. And with increasing wealth disparity, they are comparatively even fewer than ever before.
Not really any meaningful difference.
Maybe if we keep going with the concentration of wealth we can boil it all down to just one guy and then drown that guy in the bathtub like Republicans wanted to do with the federal government.
Ps: As far as your oligarchy vs plutocracy thing goes, we’re just both.
I mean give capitalism long enough we might be left with just one guy standing. I do mean guy. An immortal white shriveled dude, alone in a utopia of bots serving him.
And I just meant this whole “ah we’re not an oligarchy! We’re a plutocracy” thing is just dumb. What is even the difference in these peoples heads? It’s practically the same thing. And it IS the same thing under capitalism. The few who rule are the wealthy.
That’s the whole point of the system… capitalISM? The owners of CAPITAL rule?
Nah, they’re not immortal and all tech has problems. I get this is like the wet dream of the tech bros to be self-sufficient masters of robot armies, and I hate to kink shame, but it won’t ever happen.
The one directly inspired by Rome, an oligarchy with strict class systems and slavery?
Yeah, I read that and was like… “Ya know, you’re only about 260 years late…”