I Say, 'Let's Remove the Rich from Power'; What Does that Actually Mean?

I discuss what it means for the town of Sedona, Arizona, where homeless workers are being treated like dirt.

Who are “the rich” we should remove from power?

“The rich” are the people with the real power in our society. They are the people who, when they telephone the President of the United States, their call is answered. They are the people who make life and death decisions that affect thousands, even millions or billions of people: whether to invade Iraq in 2003, whether to back neo-Nazi ethnic cleansing of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine to force (“unprovoked” my ass!) Russia to send a military force into Ukraine and then bring the world even closer to thermonuclear war, whether to commit genocide in Gaza in 2024, whether to move whole industries overseas and thereby destroy millions of working class lives. Those kinds of people.

“The rich” are NOT people who worked as a professor or middle-management or engineer, etc., and acquired a 401-K or similar pension that, when invested, grew after their retirement just barely enough to make their net assets top one million dollars. Such people, strictly speaking “millionaires,” have no more real say about the important decisions in our society than does a beggar on the street. Mega billionaires trample over such “millionaires” the same as they do beggars on the street. Compared to the rich—the really rich—the “millionaires” and beggars and all the ones in between are all just the have-nots, the hired help, the riff-raff.

What “remove the rich from power” does NOT mean?

Removing the rich from power does NOT mean making them pay a modest fee for the right to continue treating the have-nots like dirt (i.e., continue to do the things I write about here.) This is what “tax the billionaires” amounts to—making them pay a modest fee for the right to keep treating the have-nots like dirt. Removing the rich from power does not mean passing some “campaign finance” laws that are, for the really rich, barely even a nuisance.

What “remove the rich from power” DOES mean?

Removing the rich from power means making society be egalitarian (read what this means here) despite the objections of the rich. It means using whatever force is required to prevent the rich from preventing the have-nots from making society be egalitarian. It means using whatever force is required to prevent any other people (such as members of the military or police forces, etc.) from obeying orders from the rich to attack have-nots who are making society be egalitarian.

Removing the rich from power means making it so that they enjoy the same rights (e.g., as indicated in this Egalitarian Bill of Rights) as everybody else, and ONLY the same rights as everybody else.

Removing the rich from power means letting them enjoy a good standard of living, but NOT letting them enjoy wealth and privileges at the expense of other people.

Removing the rich from power means forcibly preventing them from standing in the way of making society egalitarian, even incarcerating them if necessary.

Removing the rich from power means using violence in self-defense against those who use violence against people making society egalitarian.

Why is it important to talk about removing the rich from power today?

The vast majority of people (the have-nots) today are justifiably PISSED at the way the rich treat us like dirt. The vast majority of people today would therefore LOVE to remove the rich from power, as I prove here. But hardly anybody today thinks it is possible to remove the rich from power. The reason they feel hopeless this way is because they don’t know that the vast majority want to remove the rich from power; they think that hardly anybody else does.

They feel all alone this way because they never read in the newspapers or magazines or hear on the radio or see on the TV anybody saying that they want to remove the rich from power. They never read or hear or see this because the rich control the media (mass media and ‘alternative’ media) and they CENSOR such egalitarian revolutionary aspirations. This makes people feel all alone in having such an egalitarian revolutionary aspiration; it makes people avoid expressing their egalitarian revolutionary aspiration because they fear other people would think they are crazy or even dangerous; it makes people draw wrong conclusions about the other millions of have-nots such as: that most people are apathetic (meaning OK with the status quo or just uncaring at all); that most people want to keep our society with some rich and some poor because they expect to be rich one day. These are the lies that the rich use to make sure that people don’t gain the confidence and hopefulness required to begin building a movement to remove the rich from power, a movement like what I describe here.

Until we start talking SERIOUSLY about removing the rich from power; about how it’s what MOST people would love; about why, therefore, it is POSSIBLE; about what it actually means; about how much better (not utopian, but MUCH BETTER) it can make our society—until we build a mass movement that engages millions of people in talking about such things, we will continue to be treated like dirt by the rich.

This mistake—not aiming to remove the rich from power—is why the people of South Africa, despite having truly abolished apartheid there in 1994, are now still being treated like dirt by the rich, arguably even worse than during the terrible years of apartheid, as you can read about here and about Nelson Mandela’s role in this horror show here.

One typical example of what happens when we do NOT talk about removing the rich from power

The following example is from an article in the U.S. version of The Guardian newspaper that was published the same day (April 6, 2024) that I am writing this post. The article is about homeless people—mostly employed!—in a town in Arizona who live in their cars and who have no legal and safe place to park their cars at night when they sleep. I’m using this article as an example not because it is the most alarming or most dramatic example (as would be the ongoing genocide in Gaza that is happening because the rich are in power) I could have selected, but because it is typical of what goes on routinely in the United States when we allow the rich to remain in power.

If you read this rather detailed article you will learn that the town, Sedona, is a “vacation destination spot, where rents are high and short-term rentals make up a sizable chunk of the housing market.” You will learn that there are lots of people who work low-wage jobs in Sedona who cannot afford housing near enough to where they work to be practical, and who therefore live in their cars. You will learn that these homeless workers don’t have a safe and legal place to park their cars at night, but that there is a proposal, being hotly debated in the town, to make a certain parking lot, of what would otherwise be a cultural center, such a site.

As you read the article you will also learn about all the various reasons why many people oppose letting the homeless workers park in that site at night. The reasons are all reasonable-sounding, but only because they are based on the unstated—and hence unreasonable!—premise that our society (and in particular the vacation-destination nature of the town of Sedona that caters to wealthy people who can afford to pay the high short-term rents) should not ever be egalitarian. Be sure that if The Guardian reporter happened to have interviewed for this article a person who did NOT accept that unreasonable premise and was not afraid to say so (keep in mind that, due to the censorship I discuss above, people with egalitarian revolutionary aspirations fear expressing them out loud) then that person’s views would not have made it into The Guardian article because its top editors would have censored them.

Notice the very last sentence in how The Guardian article ends:

“This is probably not going to happen, and it’s too bad,” Bishop said. “Because people are just afraid to have ‘the homeless’ in their community.”

Jablow, for his part, seems exasperated.

He is not prepared to push ahead with the project while campaigners are gathering signatures. He believes it’s needed immediately, but doesn’t want to waste money on a program that never sees the light of day.

The parking program isn’t the best idea, Jablow concedes. But he has yet to hear a viable alternative.

“Give me an idea,” the mayor said. “I’m open to anything.” [my emphasis]

‘Give me an idea’; OK, Mr. Mayor: here’s an idea!

Here’s an egalitarian idea. Let’s make our society an egalitarian one on a large scale. For the people who live and work in Sedona this is what that might mean. Since the town of Sedona is apparently such a nice vacation destination, then the main thing that the people in Sedona will produce, directly or indirectly, will be an enjoyable vacation experience for people who come there on vacation.

This is how it will work, economically. The Sedona Assembly of Egalitarians (read about this here) will gain membership of Sedona in a large region (state, national, global, who knows?) sharing economy based on mutual agreements of all the member local communities (like Sedona) to share economic goods and services for free according to the principle, “From each according to reasonable ability, to each according to need or reasonable desire with scarce things equitably rationed according to need (read about this here and in more detail here).

The people in Sedona who contribute reasonably according to ability all equally have the right to take from the large region sharing economy for free what they need (such as housing and food, etc.) or reasonably desire and to be equals with respect to getting scarce things equitably rationed. The people who are not Sedona residents but do live or work in the large sharing economy region and who contribute reasonably according to ability can vacation in Sedona (a reasonable amount of time) and enjoy everything there that they need (food, shelter, etc.) or reasonably desire (fun stuff) for free.

The real power—the sovereign power!—in Sedona (and likewise elsewhere) would be in the hands of the egalitarians of the local community, which would likely include most if not all of the homeless workers in Sedona who today are homeless and treated like dirt. I am quite sure that the egalitarians of Sedona would use their power to create good housing for all the people in Sedona who contribute reasonably according to ability.

THAT, Mr. Mayor, is an idea. Do you DARE consider it?

Read here how YOU can help build the egalitarian revolutionary movement to implement this idea.