Drunken Ginger Scottish t*** 925

the been progress.

I've mixed it with all levels, and you find good and bad everywhere. Its the endemic selfishness which is the problem, rather than simply the distribution of wealth. Add to that the *lottery-principle*, where people who should know better think it is wrong to tax the rich because everybody thinks they could be rich one day, and the status quo is inevitable.

Revolution is the only way society changes, otherwise we'd all learn the dates of the long changeless periods in between rather than the times when society (or some section of it) decides enough is enough, and overturns the existing norms. It thankfully doesn't always involve firing squads...

The 1920s and 30s are an interesting period. Society was undergoing mbuttive changes socially and economically. In the US, Roosevelt's New Deal was a model of socialist (with an emphasis on social) ideals, arguably saving the country from the Great Depression not just economically, but politcally. Meanwhile, Germany had no such leadership, and in the void came those who were able to exploit the resentment that large numbers of unemployed, hyperinflation etc., caused.

Look at the West today. Incredible amounts of personal debt, overinflated house prices which increase year on year beyond wage increases (to many a good thing, but it has coincided with more and more housing stock becoming the property of fewer and fewer people and institutions), pensions crises looming, job security (including pensions) disappearing, emerging markets taking jobs, and the inevitable movement of demand and consumption which will follow, impending energy and water shortages throughout the world. It's a depressing outlook, and one which will be ripe for the same choices (and worse) as those faced in the thirties.