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I want to say that it's actually not bad if you have the elites of your society freed from labor to actually do the work of being elites. It's a natural specialization and a good thing both for the elites and the people they administer. Pretty much every successful empire has this going on. You don't want the people making the big decisions to get lost in the petty details. For everyone's sake.
The real problem is that these people want this status without doing the work or having the abilities required of an elite class, let alone any love for the people, loyalty to the nation or what have you.
Were this black american pseudo-nobility mostly made of Clarence Thomases, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
This mentality also finds itself at home with privileged, white and entitled libertarians who want to enact a world where the market solves all problems, and you think you can do away with politics entirely. It's a worldview that says I have no obligations to others, if I can get rich nobody should bother me. It's quite striking how much they idealize the worldview that animates the underclasses and third world countries of the rest of the planet.
Libertarianism does not say you have no obligations to others. This is a ridiculous strawman.
(It does say that your obligations to others are limited, which bleeding-heart liberalism and progressivism do not, but that, as they say, is a "feature")
Is it? I got blasted pretty hard every time I introduced the concept to PCM. Humor aside, you got better quality political discussion there then you did in actual political subreddits. Maybe not to someone like you who has a more sophisticated understanding of it. But to the rebellious young adults who protested Jesus in the household and found their new Bible in "Man, State and Economy" with an Internet connection, they 'absolutely' think that, and will explicitly tell you as much.
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Have you read any of Bryan Caplan waxing about his "beautiful bubble"?
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Yes. He calls the world outside “dreary, insipid, ugly, boring, wrong, and wicked”, but adds that “Trying to reform it is largely futile” and implies he has no obligation to waste his efforts.
By declaring effort largely futile, he makes it clear any predictably unsuccessful attempts would be mere signaling of “caring” without real effect.
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Sure, community organizers not needing a day job is a sign of societal wealth more than anything, but these people don’t do anything to help their communities, they just stoke racial tensions and grift.
That's because a money grab will always be easier and more gainful to an opportunist, than putting in the hard work of being productive and trying to align incentives in your community.
Pointing out the problems of the people you're surrounded by and live amongst never earns you any friends, but only contempt. Telling people there is no magic bullet to solve their issues, you have to stop being an entitled single mother, you have to go to school, you have to keep your house in order, you have to conduct yourself morally and be an upstanding citizen is a recipe for making enemies with the people you're trying to help. People don't want to hear it. And this is no different with almost any other negative social feedback loop out there. If I get on the podium in a presidential debate and say I'm not going to solve all your problems. This is a generational issue. It took us half a century just to get where we are currently and will take decades to give what my constituencies what they are asking for. Now vote for me. Do people think that'll happen? No. They'll settle for a liar who makes false promises and delivers mediocre outcomes.
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That's a pretty bold statement.
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