By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026Now, if Piketty is right, East Germany's leaders *could* have solved this problem by giving people *fewer reasons* to want to overthrow the state. 53/ 11355
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026They could have taken their hands out of the cookie jar, instituted democratic reforms - made a bid for democratic legitimacy and public material comfort. But that would have come at the leaders' own power and wealth, and, lacking the stomach for this sacrifice, they lost *everything*. 54/ 314712
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026Enter the NSA: digital civilization has *drastically* reduced surveillance costs - per Piketty - this *vastly* increases the inequality the world can sustain before the illegitimacy, incompetence and cruelty of neoaristocratic winners of the orifice lottery brings the whole thing crashing down. 55/ 217427
Tom @stealthisbook.bsky.social · 11/08/2026Did they lose everything? Sure, if they were totally invested in the social order, that changed entirely. Personally, things worked out ok for these people. Living in the US kleptocratic regime, that seems like the model the bad guys are following expecting wrist slaps and pardons all round 000
Scabby Don't @generalmonkey.bsky.social · 11/08/2026Our oligarchs aren't in it for wealth - they long ago had all the resources they want. Now they hoard opportunity, so that everything will depend upon their permission - they're in it for power, and they'll happily rubbish the world's wealth for a greater share of the power. 010
