Californians: Slaves or Serfs?

Only the tech- rich oligarchs will survive -  at least until the proletariat's money runs out.  That's when the retribution begins for ruining a beautiful state.  How long before Oregon sinks this low?

I used to think that we were too far removed from SF and SoCal to be threatened by their nonsense.  Oregonians were simply smarter and well-grounded - immune to the flights of fancy that were making paradise an expensive social experiment.  Our dampness was always a roadblock to immigration.  Damn Goretex.  Oregon has been Californicated, susceptible to all the progressive, regressive, dissterous ideas that are ruining paradise.

Hopefully, California will burn itself up and show everyone what terrible mistakes are being made before we lose it all - down south and here too.

Tyranny, elitism and oligarchs are already here.  Be viligant.

Orange County Register, June 11, 2017
Opinion - By Joel Kotkin
California's descent to socialism

California is widely celebrated as the fount of technical, cultural and political innovation. Now we seem primed to outdo even ourselves, creating a new kind of socialism that, in the end, more resembles feudalism than social democracy.

The new consensus is being pushed by, among others, hedge-fund-billionaire-turned-green-patriarch Tom Steyer. The financier now insists that, to reverse our worsening inequality, we must double down on environmental and land-use regulation, and make up for it by boosting subsidies for the struggling poor and middle class. This new progressive synthesis promises not upward mobility and independence, but rather the prospect of turning most Californians into either tax slaves or dependent serfs.

California’s progressive regime of severe land-use controls has helped to make the state among the most unaffordable in the nation, driving homeownership rates to the lowest levels since the 1940s. It has also spurred a steady hegira of middle-aged, middle-class families — the kind of tax-burdened people Gov. Jerry Brown now denounces as “freeloaders” — from the state. They may have access to smartphones and virtual reality, but the increasingly propertyless masses seem destined to live in the kind of cramped conditions that their parents and grandparents had escaped decades earlier.

There is some irony in a new kind of socialism blessed by some of the world’s richest people. The new policy framework is driven, in large part, by a desire to assume world leadership on climate-related issues. The biggest losers will be manufacturing, energy and homebuilding workers, who will see their jobs headed to other states and countries.

Under the new socialism, expect more controls over the agribusiness sector, notably the cattle industry, California’s original boom industry, which will be punished for its cows’ flatulence. Limits on building in the periphery of cities also threaten future growth in construction employment, once the new regulations are fully in place.

In the end, we are witnessing the continuation of an evolving class war, pitting the oligarchs and their political allies against the state’s diminished middle and working classes. It might work politically, as the California electorate itself becomes more dependent on government largesse, but it’s hard to see how the state makes ends meet in the longer run without confiscating the billions now held by the ruling tech oligarchs.