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I believe Plato pointed this out in The Republic.

He thought the richest citizen needed to have no more then 5x the wealth of the poorest citizen or you would inevitably slide into oligarchy.

Capitalism is a threat to democracy.

But thanks for getting on nearly the same page, Oxfam.

Recent high-profile acquisitions include Jeff Bezos purchasing the Washington Post, Elon Musk buying Twitter (now X), and Patrick Soon-Shiong acquiring the Los Angeles Times. A billionaire consortium also bought significant stakes in The Economist.

In France, far-right billionaire Vincent Bolloré has transformed CNews into what critics call the French equivalent of Fox News. In the United Kingdom, three-quarters of newspaper circulation is controlled by just four wealthy families.

This is amazing. News and communication in the internet age was supposed to be democratised publication and agency to the voice of the average person, and it is to a small extent, but for the most part society was just like

The sky also happens to be blue. That gotta be news too.

Edit: Okay, having read the summary, it seems like they have proved causality between growing economic inequality and democratic backsliding. Which yeah, most people could have guessed, but now we have a fancy bunch of paper that says so.

We’ve been pointing this out ever since the concept of currency became a thing, but I’m sure we will learn our lesson this time and stop doing it. This can’t just be how it will always be until we drive ourselves to extinction stuck on this miserable rock, Right?

So when are we going tondo what about this?

This. Has. To. Stop.

We cannot allow a single person or family to control a single news organization, let alone multiple. Anyone who thought that was a good or even okay idea has been, and continues to be, delusional.

So tired of this tbh - I just don't understand how anyone thinks wealth consolidation to few could be a good thing.

Even if you ignore ethics and assume the billionaires are benevolent - it's just a bad investment to invest majority of resources to a small number of investments. Does any successful large project hold 99% of their investments in few projects? It's absurd.

It makes absolutely zero sense no matter how you look at it unless you're truly full in on delusion that benevolent dictators exist and are impossible to corrupt or overtake.

i think some german said this 100 years ago already

Now lets do another massively funded research project to figure out the next step a lot of people already know.. LOBBYING!!

Rich people use Lobbying groups to manipulate countries and ruin the sovereignty of the nation, have done so since Lobbying groups were added to Capitilism...

Who would be surprised that concentrating most resources in a few is the opposite of the common good...

No fucking shit.

In other news: water is wet.

Poor people: "Well I guess there's only one solution really." Gestures to unpaid taxes and clears throat.

Billionaires: "Yes..." Looks at AI and fully automated societies before clutching pocketbook closer. "One final solution."

You mean letting a small group of people consolidate power under themselves is a danger to a system designed to evenly distribute power? No way!

No shit bro for real? 

No shit, Sherlock (c)

Waiting for another news. Like water is wet and education should function well

Great to see the workings of those keen minds. Rich people a threat to liberal democracy, who knew? I mean except everyone that lives outside billionaires colon.

Are we waiting to hear it from the news to believe it?

It's not that they are rich, we've always had rich people. The problem is that we now have rich people with enough wealth to compete with nations, and they are getting even stronger. They are now starting to cut their own deals with nations that benefit them personally, with no regard to the nations, and millions of people that could be harmed by that policy. We've already seen Musk manipulate Starlink to steer a war in his direction, and unleash his hacking squad to rig an American election, just so he could use the opportunity to cripple all the government agencies that were investigating his crimes.

And it will only get worse. They are approaching Trillionaire status, and will be even more powerful. How long before multiple trillionaires form an alliance, and build their own personal military?

Eventually we will reach a point where it will become impossible to reign them in, and then we will all wonder why someone didn't do something about them when it was still possible, like NOW.

Screw Idiocracy. People reference it not understanding there were positives in the negatives. This is "Don't Look Up", that nailed our current corrupt leadership and techno-corporate lunacy, as well as ignoring what is right in front of us because shiny things are more interesting.

Yeah, this isn’t anything new. Literally centuries old analysis here. I guess it’s nice they updated it for the contemporary society, though.

I suspect the only time the US got close to representative government was the New Deal era. Most people just live their lives and don't think in ideological terms. The ones that do are considered "too into politics" and usually believe in reform because it requires less of them than the alternative. Anyways, how about that bread and circuses?