​Jean-Jacques Rousseau was right

By Ed Raymond

“When the people have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich”

About 250 years ago my poor French ancestors had nothing to eat so they rebelled against the crown of Louis XVI and Queen Antoinette — after he had helped Americans defeat the British — and stormed the Bastille in Paris, the symbol of monarchical power in France on July 14, 1789. The royal prison of France had only seven prisoners in a country with 26 million people, the most population of any European country. The takeover was the beginning of the French Revolution of 1789. July 14 is a public holiday in France just like July 4 is in the Divided States of America.

Before I get into my rant about billionaires and paupers, I want to quote from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to French politician and author Jean Nicolas De’mennier in June 1786. Here was a white man from Virginia who wrote the famous line “all men are created equal” who enslaved more than 600 people of color in his lifetime. They worked and cared for him from before birth to beyond grave.

He had been born into a slaveholding society. At his birth, a slave woman was most likely his wet nurse. When his white children were born, his wife Martha had difficulty with her milk supply, so their first child was wet-nursed “by a good breast of milk” supplied by Black slave Ursula Granger. Please remember Jefferson had six mixed race children with his young Black slave Sally Hemings, but that’s another story. Black nannies supervised and cared for him as a child and Black slaves were his primary attendants before and after his death.

Elephants and lions know that women make better leaders

“No prominent member of the Founding Fathers engaged more directly, and some would say more disastrously, with the subject of race than Thomas Jefferson,” wrote “Jefferson Divided” author Annette Gordon Reed. “The man who wrote what has come to be called the American Creed, the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming ‘all men are created equal,’ enslaved hundreds of people of African descent over the course of his life, even as he wrote extremely critical words about the institution and believed himself to be anti-slavery.

How could this be? How could a man hold such contradictory positions?” Here are his answers to those questions (and what he thought of his fellow man) from his 1786 letter to his French friend:

“What a stupendous, incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes (whippings), imprisonment, or death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him thro’ his trial and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose. But we must await with patience the workings of an overruling providence, and hope that that is preparing deliverance of these our suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be full, when their groans shall involve Heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a god of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors, or at length by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention to the things of this world, and that they are not left to the guidance of a blind fatality.”

Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” was guilty of loving gold gilt and mirrors

Versailles started in the 17th century as a simple hunting lodge for Louis XIII and royalty, but under control of Louis XIV in the 18th Century grew to an estate covering 2,000 acres inside 37,000 acres owned by the king. The formal gardens covered 200 acres and featured exotic plants, fountains and mazes. The Palace features a huge hall of 357 mirrors facing large windows, furniture covered with gold and bronze gilt and hundreds of paintings. It took thousands of candles to illuminate the hall at night. The palace had many apartments where royalty could stay. Three other buildings, a Royal Chapel, the Grand Trianon, and the Petit Trianon, help dominate the scene.

Britannica summarizes the reasons for the 1789 French Revolution: “Louis XIV’s excesses included extravagant spending on the Palace of Versailles, funding constant wars, lavish court life, and personal indulgences in mistresses, which drained France’s treasury and burdened its people with heavy taxes, setting the stage for future revolution while consolidating absolute power by controlling the nobility and the French Church (Catholic). His pursuit of glory through military conquest and opulent displays of divine right ultimately impoverished France.”

Louis XIV also banished millions of Protestants called Huguenots, which caused economic concern and revolt. One could call that deportation of different believers. He also raised taxes on the poor and devalued the currency they did possess. He intimidated rich nobles and insisted they live at Versailles, making them dependent on him. He maintained several mistresses who bore his children. Does all of this sound familiar?

60,000 multimillionaires have three times the wealth of 4.1 billion

The third edition of “The World Inequality Report” prepared by researchers at the World Inequality Lab reveals that the huge chasm between billionaires and multimillionaires and everyone else continues to expand at a rapid rate, with 60,000 multimillionaires possessing three times more wealth than the poorest 4.1 billion people scattered around Planet Earth. The difference staggers the imagination and destroys economies and democratic countries and institutions. The experts say economic inequality must be considered an international emergency and requires immediate attention. Prosperity must be shared to have a successful society and country. Economic inequality is the result of political and institutional choices.

The richest 10% own 3/4 of the world’s wealth and have more income than the rest of humanity. It is rare that the bottom 50% in any country controls more than 5% of national wealth. The best example of this malfeasance is Elon Musk and his various enterprises. On December 15, investors increased his wealth by $168 billion to a total of $600 billion, twice as much as the billionaire in second place with only $300 billion.

The report has more bad news for 90% of the world’s population: “This concentration of wealth is not only persistent, but it is also accelerating. Since the 1990s, the wealth of billionaires and centi-millionaires has grown at approximately 8% annually, nearly twice the rate of growth experienced by half of the population. The poorest have made modest gains, but these are overshadowed by the extraordinary accumulation at the very top.”

Billionaires gained political power with their cash. In 2000, the country’s wealthiest people paid a quarter of one percent of the total costs of federal elections. Last year they covered 7.5% of the elections. Money is power and they love buying it, according to a Washington Post article and data collected by Open Secrets.

The Depression era song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” was written almost a century ago to describe about 70% of the population of the United States when 25% were unemployed. It could have been written last week to cover people who buy groceries on credit or credit cards, visit free food pantries, cancel childcare arrangements and collect eviction notices, even if they have full-time jobs.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

They used to tell me I was building a dream/And so I followed the mob

When there was earth to plow or guns to bear/I was always right there on the job

They used to tell me I was building a dream/ With peace and glory ahead

Why should I be standing in line/ And waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run/ Made it race against time

Once I built a railroad, now it’s done/ Brother can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower up to the sun/ Brick and rivet and time

Once I built a tower, now it’s done/ Brother can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee, we looked swell/ Full of that yankee doodle dum

Half a million boots went sloggin’ through hell/ And I was the kid with the drum

Say, don’t you remember, they called me Al/ It was Al all the time

Why don’t you remember I’m your pal/ Say buddy, can you spare a dime?

“Brother, Can you Spare a Dime” was written by E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, with music by Jay Gorney and was featured in the 1932 Broadway revue “Americana.”

Did French billionaires lose their heads because of a greed virus?

A few years ago, a source reported that medical specialists had identified 870,000 viruses attacking bodies on the planet. A recent study said the human body has 40 trillion bacteria.

My question is: If billionaires are so smart, why don’t they realize they are ruining Planet Earth for all residents? Michael Hirschorn, who studies the intersection of culture and politics, says because they live in such excessive luxury, billionaires become isolated and contact only wealthy people like themselves. They are “unencumbered by the inconveniences of ordinary people and life.”

But why couldn’t they have been victims of a “greed” virus? In the end of most empires, the superrich have eventually been eaten by the poor. Louis XIV died a natural death in 1715, but his relative King Louis XVI and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette lost their heads to the baskets of the French Razor, the guillotine, in 1793. They were both convicted of high treason after revolutionary court investigations. There remains some question whether Queen Marie Antoinette ever uttered “Let them eat cake!” after she heard peasants were starving.

The 2020 Citizens United case approved 5-4 by a Republican Supreme Court opened the floodgates of cash to buy politicians and political power. The billionaire Koch brothers of pipeline and fossil fuel fame were the first to buy the Republican Party. Billionaire Peter Thiel of Palandir spent millions buying the vice-presidency for hillbilly JD Vance. Billionaire Marc Andreessen’s venture capital business pledged $100 million to make sure Artificial Intelligence would not be regulated by Democrats. He also told off Pope Leo for suggesting the field of technology required more guardrails. Billionaire Bill Ackman of New York and several of his billionaire friends pledged hundreds of millions to defeat Democratic Socialist and Muslim Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City (He lost a lot of money in defeat.)

Then we have almost trillionaire Elon Musk, the richest man in the universe, who spent $270 million supporting another malignant narcissist, Donald John Trump, to the presidency of the Divided States of America. When appointed Director of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by the Lyin’ King, Musk claimed his transgender daughter was dead instead of alive and well as a member of the LBGTQUIA+ community as he fired thousands of government employees.

My favorite source of truth in all economic matters, Democratic Capitalist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, asked billionaires a very important question after saying the country did not need billionaires: “You mean to tell me you can’t live a decent life on $999 million?”