We Welcome Our New Plutocratic Overlords

[marmar]

from the In These Times ITT List blog:



By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger


Meet the new global elite. They’re pretty much the same as the old global elite, only richer and more smug.

Laura Flanders of GritTV interviews business reporter Chrystia Freeland about her cover story in the latest issue of the Atlantic Monthly on the new ruling class. She says that today’s ultra-rich are more likely to have earned their fortunes in Silicon Valley or on Wall Street than previous generations of plutocrats, who were more likely to have inherited money or established companies.

As a result, she argues, today’s global aristocracy believes itself to be the product of a meritocracy. The old sense of noblesse oblige among the ultra-rich is giving way to the attitude that if the ultra-rich could do it, everyone else should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Ironically, Freeland points out that many of the new elite got rich from government bailouts of their failed banks. It’s unclear why this counts as earning one’s fortune, or what kind of meritocracy reserves its most lavish rewards for its most spectacular failures. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.theittlist.com/ittlist/ind/5887/weekly_audit_we_welcome_our_new_plutocratic_overlords/

[gmoney]

1. "Hail Ants!"

[daggahead]

2. What about the people that don't have boots? n/t

[Kennah]

3. They don't know jack

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Pluto is no longer a planet so welcome them? Not so much. n/t