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Credit: biography.com
Louis XVI’s policy of not raising taxes and taking
out international loans, including to fund the American Revolution, increased France’s debt, setting in motion the French Revolution. By the mid-1780s the country was near bankruptcy, which forced the king to support radical fiscal
reforms not favourable with the nobles or
the people. [Smells like 1MDB] |
One of my friends proudly announced how he managed to identify a nagging problem on his car dashboard that none of the mechanics in town could correctly identify. An indicator kept on flashing implying that there could be a minor issue with the mixture of fuel and oxygen. With the help of his ever-inquisitive mind and resourcefulness, he got it fixed. With his self-taught knowledge of automobiles and the aid of Youtube, he diagnosed the fault. To source the sensor that needed to change, there was the net to search and Lazada to ensure that the merchandise arrived at your doorstep in no time.
Only because he did not possess the tools to fix the part, he had to get the assistance of a local mechanic. That too, an apprentice came to his rescue. And voila, problem solved.
The friend was naturally jubilant on his achievement and of course had all rights to brag.
Just to play devil advocate, I told him that he had just become an accomplice to the great evil capitalist empire whose intention is to gobble up the small time little men's livelihood. Like in the film 'You've got m@il', since the 90s, these big concerns have been trying, successfully, usurping SMEs. The biggest losers seem to be the common man. With the advent of DIY and ease of transborder mail order, their roles (the average man) seem superfluous. Try searching for anything online. There is a conspiracy to highlight specific predetermined options. Big tech companies own so many companies these days that almost every search engine and the companies that sell many products belong to these conglomerates. Payment portals and logistics companies too only profit the already super-rich multinational companies. At the end of the day, the small shops around town can just wind down.
Just like the vegetable sellers in wet markets who have lost out to hypermarkets in selling greens, every entrepreneur in town will eventually just become salaryman to these MNCs. The already cash-strapped mammoth cartels whose assets already supercede that of a third world country will rule the world. That will lead to a New World Order where the divide between the haves and have-nots will be so vast, reminiscing of a time not so long in the distant past; when the peasants were wailing in hunger while the nobility could not understand why they could not be content with the leftover cakes! By then we would have made a full 360° turn and back to where we started. The French and Russian Revolutions that attempted to correct the disparity between the 1% rich and 99% poor would have been proved futile.
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