It is our hypothesis that a certain relatively small subset of people are predisposed through both nurture and nature to seek to monopolize the public economy by distorting the rules, in order to gain control over the many through the possession of key assets.
It is not a matter of need or survival or even rational economic preference; it is a pathology, a compulsion, an intense neurosis. We have seen this happen in large companies and in nations where fear and greed become the dominant forces of societal impulse. The coupe de grace is generally the propagation of power to idiot sons and assorted mediocrities and sycophants, although the inherent instability of the principals are not to be discounted as a destructive force. The Roman Empire, Stalinsim, and the Fourth Reich come to mind.
This tendency is kept in check in a balanced system by peer pressure, strong cultural mores, and public laws and regulations which tend to suppress an assortment of unproductive and outright destructive impulses.
But when through whatever means the acquisitors gain an undue influence in the system then we have an enormous accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, and a growing tension between sustainability and collapse...
It's a cliché, of course, that the 2000s are the new Gilded Age, that inequality in America is at levels not seen since the original Gilded Age, which you may recall was ended by a terrible depression...
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