Loud

The fact that redistributional difficulties tend to arise together with overall stagnation is no accident. In order to redistribute income and assets in their favor, rulers need to exert their power on the rest of society; to exert such power, they have to strategically limit and partly sabotage the well-being of the underlying population; and this strategic sabotage tends to appear at the aggregate level in the form of stagnation.26 The rulers themselves, because of their social position, cannot comprehend, let alone accept, this necessity, and their dominant dogmas and ideologies hide and deny it. But the historical evidence, particularly during acute crises, proves it time and again: unable to see the contradiction, the rulers attempt to alleviate the general malaise as well as to keep their redistributional power intact; but because their power depends on the sabotage they cause, this attempt invariably fails.