FBXL Social

One thing to keep in mind with Voltaire is that he lived right before the French revolution, during regime l'ancien, and so during that time the rich weren't capitalists who became Rich by providing goods and services to other people, they were nobles who became Rich by taxing the productive economy. The French revolution began because the people who are actually making society work we're getting sucked up by state vampires so badly they had no chance to survive without crowding into the cities to try to get a chance to soak up some of the wealth of the wealthy nobles as they spend it on their own lavish lifestyles.

To be honest, there are some extreme parallels with today, but again it's not because of capitalists who provide services to others to make their money, it's because we are at one of the highest levels of taxation in human history collectively, resulting in for example Washington DC being one of the highest per capita income locations on planet Earth.

I don't know, maybe it's time for another revolution.

I agree with you that the French revolution was a failure, and the ripples are felt even today.

One thing about it is that it was relatively unique. It was an example of people in power being so worthless that everyone including the military turned inward. Most of the time you don't have it so the people in power screw up so totally.

And within a few years there was another happy emperor ruling the place.

Hard to argue the Jacobins and the reign of terror weren't terrible.