The Man Who Saw Trump Coming a Century Ago

[truthdig.com]

(And privation always stands as an obstacle to innovation and change. In this way, the industrial, technological, and social progress of the whole society is retarded or perhaps even thrown into reverse. Such are the self-perpetuating effects of the unequal distribution of wealth. And reader take note: the leisure class brings about these results on purpose.)

Occasionally I make the statement that we are intentionally being held back from progressing, both socially and technologically. Perpetual warring within, for, the "leisure classes" agenda keeps our world society from uniting and moving from outdated technology. We are still operating within societies of 18th century ideology when we should be advancing towards the 22nd century. We have essentially wasted half a decade of time in solar energy alone, after Carter made a move in the 70's only for Reagan to turn back the clock. Coal mines? The miners from such should be building the most advance technology of solar panels in the world today here in the US. They should be seen on every house nationwide today!!! I could go on and on with technology advancement that is being intentionally held back.

(Their only frustration: that the left-over reforms of Veblen’s own “Progressive Era” and those of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal still somehow stand (though for how long no one knows).

Although I would argue that what's left is stagnant and in areas moving backwards. If you look at issues like health care, banking regulations, rules on corporate profits and subsidies, and taxes for example, these are tweaked each time a new administration comes into power, often multiple times within an administration, that the end results always conclude a loss for tax payers and society as a whole. Infrastructure, as mentioned in the article, pertaining to states, has been severely hampered as national funding have been canceled in many aspects that local and state governments now are forced to pick up the charge or become a faltering city and or state. Which lead to higher taxes on property and consumer products. Here in Ohio they are presently debating on how much they are going to raise taxes on gas and diesel prices at the pump for road constructionand other infrastructure projects. Which started out at 18 cents a gallon from our newly elected republican governor. 9 and 11 cents have been thrown around since.

(To the end, Veblen had hoped that one day the Predators would be driven from the marketplace and the workers would find their way to socialism. Yet a century ago, it seemed to him more likely that the Predators and Saboteurs, collaborating as they did even then with politicians and government lackeys, would increasingly amass more profits, more power, more adulation from the men of the working class, until one day, when those very plutocrats actually captured the government and owned the state, a Gilded Business Man would arise to become a kind of primitive Warlord and Dictator. He would then preside over a new and more powerful regime and the triumph in America of a system we would eventually recognize and call by its modern name: fascism.)

This essentially boils down to the understanding of, the means of production. But with the perception management held over so many in the aspects of socialism, it's the ignorance of these many who hold society back from advancing. While they already live within a socialized society that benefits the "leisure class" they allow the perception management to keep them engulfed in an illusion against their own benefits.