Further wealth growth will dissolve standards of democracy

Summarizing the history described in our previous post:  the wealth (I mean the wealthiest people with personal content  prone to changes) always has the only goal - to grow in absolute and relative terms, and the wealth has all power and means to do so. The rate of wealth growth is based on the control of (contemporary) most productive population group/technology. The set of control mechanisms evolve in time and adjusts to the ultimate goal. Currently, the most developed countries squeeze the excess profit from extra rapid and global spreading of software governing almost all aspects of goods/services production (e.g. chips, finances) and human life - from basic physical health to deep mental illness. In the modern system, larger and larger groups of population become obsolete as diminishing the rate of profit. These poor people are subjects of obstruction (remember the term "deplorable") since they opposing the wealth growth by populistic/democratic procedures. For example, Trump was elected using such democratic procedures as the person expressing the previous paradigm of wealth growth (as well as people  (e.g. the middle class of the 1950s -1990s) and techniques - industry), which has been progressively losing its power and influence since the start of Internet. Trump is preaching a suboptimal approach to the overall wealth growth, and thus, he is a temporary personage (together with other losers) in the history of global wealth. In that sense, the further wealth growth has democratic procedures as an obstacle - deplorable people have to be washed out. Specific mechanisms are under development - from brainwash through defamation to intimidation. 

Is the humanitarian society dying?

The history of social development can be explained as the use of profit making part of population by wealth. Farmers produced a larger part of wealth for centuries supporting sustainable population growth.  “Noble” people had harvested the excess profit of food and primitive technical production before effective industrial-size mechanical tools were invented and workers replaced farmers as the excess profit maker. A few centuries exploitation was hard and the working class produced more and more profit allowing replacement of “noble” by the owners of growing factories – capitalists. To protect property the force of knights was replaced by the “power of law” enforced by bought police and court. (Bought means that their budgets are controlled by the governments where the representatives of wealth prevail.) Mechanisms were relatively simple as demanded high skills including masculine power. Workers were the creators of value but the norm of excess profit was relatively small per working hour and a larger part of population had to be involved in industrial production together with farmers with relatively low but increasing productivity. Education was not a production asset and social life was extremely polarized between a small group of the richest and masses.   

The next step was related to the increasing electric power behind industrial production, which demanded more educated specialists/engineers covering routine processing and further development. Services also started to develop at an accelerating rate in order to sustain the health and productivity of the population part providing the highest input to the excess profit. Specialists, together with highly skilled workers, formed the middle class. Education become the driver of economic growth and fast wealth growth. The skills of an average worker became less profitable asset.  The role of the middle class as social life trend maker was high.  

This golden age was not long, however, compared to the periods of farmers and workers as the prevailing profit makers. Computers changed everything and ordinary line engineers were declassified to average workers. Computer champions became the excess profit makers. Wealth (0.1 per cent of the population) now days gets the highest portion of GDP (GDI) ever. As a result, the household median (real) income has not been increasing since the late 1990s. The excess profit is and economic profit was privatized by the wealthiest part of population. Engineers and specialists (except the most effective and productive) lost their power in social and economic life. Computer geeks are quite different as humans  - less masculine power and more creativity sometimes close to psychic illness. Since these geeks provide an extremely high rate of excess profit as individuals unlike chain (production line) workers and engineers the search of these profit makers includes intensive support of their (sub-) culture sometimes in many cases conflicting with the conservative values of the golden age. The larger part of population is excluded from the interest of the wealth first time since the Greek republics. The clash between the wealth defending the profit makers and the conservative majority slowly recognizing own extinction in the process of economic development is the core conflict of the present.  The modern liberals serve as lubricant to detach the majority from the political and social power. Conservative views are not welcome because they suppress unlimited creativity. It needs more money, well compensated by the highest rate of productivity growth provided by the creative minority.  

I do not know how far this conflict will go in the near future and do not care about the winner. The problem is that the next step is likely related to further shift of the excess profit makers to the most creative people at the border of schizophrenia merged with the AI.

This is the way of wealth, not the humanitarian society. This society is dying every minute when the income share of the richest increases.