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Billionaires win. They are winning in this world — imagine the world as an arena...
They first reach out to those primed to defect. The ones who think they are defending their own interests because, one day after much bootstrapping, they'll be rich too. That's 10% of the non-billionaire population and a large group of the young, able-bodied, entitled predominantly male population.
Another 10% opt to not fight. They'll wait and see who comes out on top or opt for pacifism — supporting those who fight without fighting themselves.
The next 20% are those who want a compromise — not having the foresight to admit they'll be screwed in the end by the shrewd and wily billionaire class.
That still leaves 4.8 billion people.
Well, another 10% of the planet is malnourished, living in extreme poverty, or are infirm and unable to fight. Take another 10% who lack the capacity to fight effectively, are children, or are exceedingly advanced in age.
We're down to 3.2 billion people.
Of those who remain, each billionaire will need to kill 1 000 000 people in order to win the day. This is achieved by a combination of attacks — nuclear, chemical, biological, conventional, and systemic. Supply lines are cut early, communication lines are jammed, and every possible similarity that could bind 3.2 billion people together is spun into a wedge to divide them. The billionaires are unified behind their purchasing power. Each victorious serves as a message to the remaining people of the fresh horrors to come.
After five or six days, there are 2700 remaining billionaires, who somehow got richer and only 1 billion fighters. Demoralized, decimated, defeated, the non-billionaires give in.
The one strategy that would — nay, could — turn the tables is to upend the tables. Make money worthless. In some minds, this is the Purge. This is the antithesis.
Instead, as a thesis: truly valuing life and living things, the fragile interdependence of ecology within an economic, social, and anthropological order would negate any power that the death-driven cult of profiteering offers. I'm not talking about sitting in a circle and singing kumbaya into eternity. I am talking about doing the work of eternity — stewardship for a planet we understand (not just its commodities) and community for all participants (not just the economically viable). We can learn from one another and grow with one another without exploiting or reinforcing one another's weaknesses.
Takers like to quote Adam Smith, Sun Tzu, or the 48 Laws of Power. The battles we do not fight will feed us. The fields we do not raze will house us. The oceans we do not destroy will connect us. The planet we treat like a home instead of a hole in the ground will support us.