And social unrest is damaging to modern industrial societies in a way it never was to feudal subsistence societies. You cannot simply gun down striking mechanics or rioting plumbers, the way a nobleman of old could order a cavalry charge on uppity peasants: Peasants were easily and swiftly replaceable, qualified plumbers are not.
The scions of the oligarchs will almost certainly segregate into Oxbridge ghettos. But while that may be socially undesirable in a number of ways, I don't see any direct threat to the educational and scientific estate. Except, of course, from semi-literate billionaires who decide to attempt to kill off the educational and scientific estate without understanding that this would also crater much of industrial society in the process.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
I wouldn't put it past them to try - we have had 30 years of semiliterate politicians attempting to kill off one natural monopoly after another without understanding that this would crater much of the infrastructure supporting industrial society in the process. The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
