I think something this post overlooks; the "Elites", as in the investment bankers and capitalists, are vicariously cajoling the more gullible middle and upper-middle classes into voting against their own best interests.

Money in politics is what gives "elites" supreme power of peer pressure over the "do gooder wanna be ivy-leagers" and "ivy league wanna be do-gooders" all at the same time.

There is no democratic solution to this. It doesn't matter if you vote labor, conservative, democrats, republicans, greens. Democracy is no longer for, of, or by the people. Unfortunately the solution probably involves a spiral to the point that people are really suffering, followed by a violent revolution. However given the fragmented state of our societies perhaps a violent revolution would be easily divided by the powers that be into ethnic or whatever groups. Divide and conquer has worked so far in destroying our democracies.

The article has a powerful message, but its model gets a bit thin in the middle:

> The average person is too poor to fund the very things — the only things — which can offer him a better life: healthcare, education, childcare, healthcare, and so on

These things are being funded quite well, but still creating shitty results. Throwing more fuel on a fire just results in more burning. These sectors have organizational cancers like overadministration (every employee past the first in a billing department), overdelegation (doctor tells nurse tells assistant tells grunt to do something, rather than someone taking responsibility to get the job done themselves), overfinancialization (the doctor is so valuable that their time is parceled into 10 minute chunks with each patient, making them effectively useless and destroying their actual value), and general rent extraction (outlandish C-level salaries - aka fuck you got mine).

The problem isn't really "societal surplus" going to a few, but rather the surplus being wasted in a distributed fashion. Ultimately because everyone needs to cling to "full time" jobs lest they fall off the treadmill completely. So everyone is overworked in that they don't have time to keep their own house in order, but not actually producing enough to actually pay for the generally wasteful lifestyle that results.

The author confuses the elites with "us" (presumably excluding him, of course) throughout the article. The average brit or burger is a victim of the elites and, in particular, elite divide-and-conquer tactics, not a co-conspirator.

The author can correctly see things are worsening, which is true (in my own estimation), but his reasoning as to why, is terrible. I defiantly agree however on how aloof our elite are to the problems around us, and of their arrogance.