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A transcription from a BBC documentary investigating how the super–rich are transforming Britain.
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“ IT IS THE CITY OF LONDON THAT IS VIOLENT IT IS CAPITALISM THAT IS VIOLENT
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g sewn. olence are bein eds of future vi se e th at th d. Many believe entally change y have fundim lit ua eq in to Our attitudes
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In the middle ages, as far as we know, inequality did not cause people to be very dissatisfied with their condition. We were brought up from birth expecting the world to be unequal, because you knew from birth… “I’m a peasant, he’s a king. That’s the way the world works”. But when you live in a modern capitalist culture, which encourages everybody, all the time, to want more, and to believe that you can be as good as everybody else. Then, inequality becomes a much bigger problem, because then you always look at what other people have, and you want that, and this is a great cause for d i s s a t i s f . action
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a country with higher inequality
B ri t a i n
In America
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these concerns are being taken very seriously. Since occupy wall street in 2011 inequality has become a call to action. And the super rich are the focus of anger.
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THEY’RE ARRESTING THE WRONG PEOPLE. THEY’RE ALL WRONG.
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THE POLICE ARE ACTUALLY PROTECTING THE WRONG PEOPLE.
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What is clear is that some of the 99 percent believe that it is time to confront inequality. There is now a political tide for change. Powerful Americans from Barack Obama downwards, are talking about the threat to society if they do not address the great divergence. There is a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that has jeopordised middle class America’s basic bargain, that if you work hard you have a chance to get ahead. I believe that t h i s is the defining challenge of our time. —Barack Obama
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And even the super–rich themselves are taking it seriously.
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“ You show me a highly unequal society, I will show you either a revolution or a police state. Somebody like me earns ten, twenty thousand dollars an hour. You know, that creates a very different life from the life that ordinary people have to live. And that gap isn’t just an economic gap, its a social gap; and that gap, I think, is very very corrosive, because it decreases the amount of empathy that the people at the top have for everybody else.
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A sentiment that was echoed at a fair pay demo in Boston last year. The ‘pay protesters’ have formed a national movement in the US. In city after city, demonstrations have sprung up attacking inequality.
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~ I THINK WE HAVE TO FLIP AROUND THE IDEA. WE GENERATE THE MONEY FOR THEM. THEY DON’T GIVE US JOBS. WE’RE GENERATING THE RICHNESS OF THE WEALTHY PEOPLE.
~ THE NORM IN THIS COUNTRY TODAY IS FOR CEO’S TO MAKE MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY AT AN IMMORAL LEVEL. WE NEED TO BRING MONEY BACK TO THE WORKERS.
~ WE’RE NOT GOING TO GET THE ONE PERCENT TO CHANGE THEIR MIND. WE’RE GOING TO GET THE 99 PERCENT TO REALISE THAT IF THEY ALL STAND UP COLLECTIVELY, THIS IS OVER WITH TOMORROW.
“ History shows that if you make a society unequal enough, ermm, it is gonna turn bad for everybody. Particularly people like me. Are the pitchforks coming? Well, maybe not tomorrow, but if things keep going the way they are, for sure they’re gonna come.
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And these predictions are as true for the UK as they are for America. The cracks are already showing in our own hourglass society. When rioting broke out four years ago in the UK, for some it was an illegal shopping trip, but for others it was about inequality and injustice.
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And the establishment are taking note.
Remarkably, riots have been predicted in a strategic report by a secretive think tank in the ministry of defence. It stated that inequality could lead to violence, if the excluded take the law into their own hands.
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I THINK IN MODERN COMPLEX SOCIETIES, IF YOU DON’T ADDRESS THE ISSUES OF ECONOMIC INEQUALITY AND SOCIAL COHESION YOU ARE GOING TO GET UNREST. YOU’RE GOING TO GET PEOPLE WHO REJECT THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM. THEY’RE GOING TO REJECT THE MARKET. THEY’LL REJECT DEMOCRACY.
THEY WILL TAKE ACTION OUTSIDE OF OUR DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AND WE WON’T LIKE THAT.
This is not a politition talking but a high ranking member of the armed services. His warning is stark. Potential danger is clear and present.
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I think there comes a point where people say look. s
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I don’t have a stake in this society. And suddenly they burst out. A fact not lost on those who might be in the firing line.
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They will conclude that we are not playing a fair game. That we’re not playing a game at all. We’re engaging in an activity where I get everything, and they get nothing. And if it’s just a game they will simply cease to play. If this is an economy they are likely, eventually, to get really angry and come and kill me and take all my stuff! Err, because that will be their only option at that point. And this is just obvious.
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40 years of widening inequality has left Britain with a fractured society. The richest one percent now own fourteen percent of our overall income. A figure which has nearly tripled in the last 40 years. And the rest of society have become a business opportunity for the very few. The one percent are on the top floor, and the rest Britain is being transformed
of us live down here. by a polar of wealth unlike anything seen before. The super–rich conceal themselves off from this inequality, but only for so long. When it becomes unsustainable the view from the top could suddenly be very different.
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