Give Them Bread, They'll Give You a Revolution
A Letter on Starvation and the Revolution It Buys, from The Oligarchs' Lost Letters
To my equals,
We must remove the king. His actions have led me to this dire conclusion. The king has become an oppressive force against our own interests.
All of us have felt his monstrous hands dig into our pockets. All of us have seen the king centralize and consolidate his own power through the removal of our loyalists in the court. He has replaced them with sycophants who will endlessly support him simply because they have no interests of their own that have not been graciously given by the king. He has violently purged our network amongst his officials and laborers in the castle, leaving us blind and subject to his ambition alone.
This is by far the greatest danger to our society and our own future. He centralizes the military, he increases taxation on all, he orders a stockpiling of bread and munitions while food gets more and more scarce. The people are starving and angry. This allows us to harness their passions with the promise of food. The banks have stopped lending money to the king and his constituents. The people will be paid very little if any at all and they will be taxed greatly. This grants us the ability to field an army at little expense.
My own business affairs have taken a massive hit because I specifically rely on the bank for loans and payments to my various holdings and estates. All this pressure is caused by the king’s own paranoia and poor decision-making.
His own decisions have led to the necessity of these policies because he felt weak. He could not be perceived as weak, so he started a war that cost him his entire treasury. This led to the banks leaving the country, this led to the skyrocketing food prices, this led to the pervasive starvation that has taken hold of the country.
The king has retained his wartime powers and has not given up any control under the pretense of stability. He taxes us endlessly; how am I to employ and take care of my estates when I must pay 70% of all crop yields and profits to the king? Enough is enough, we must depower the king before he destroys us all.
Thankfully, he has already laid the groundwork for us. The people are miserable and starving, and he has a reputation as a malicious king waiting to torment his people. This is quite obviously exaggerated, but this propaganda and rallying cry against an oppressive monarch will conscript tens of thousands to our cause. I write to my equals because I alone do not possess the requisite military strength and political power to dethrone the monarch. I can only provide food for the starving and a modest treasury because of the excessive taxation. I ask my equals to consider joining me in a crusade against our monarch.
Do not join me because of my cause or my own political ambitions; join me because your business interests and profit centers have also been absorbed and decimated by the king. This monarchy must fall. I ask my equals to consider how things could be under a ruler of our own choosing, how much power and ambition could be consolidated into our hands. A revolution is a risk, but it is a necessary risk; if we continue to lie in wait, we will perish with the masses.
I have selected a leader already who has won the hearts and minds of the people. He has agreed to work with us as long as his own political ascension is supported. He cares not for money or wealth, he wants power. We have the ability to empower and ascend our own king. It must remain in the forefront of our minds that this man will if given the chance forsake us and turn the people. This is why he must be closely managed by our networks of new agents and laborers scattered throughout the king’s castle and council. If we allow ourselves to get lazy as our fathers did, another revolution must be carried out in 2-3 generations. This is why we must manage and hold real checks against our future king’s mind and authority.
If one amongst my equals has betrayed me to the king by allowing this letter to fall into his hands, I will know by the king’s men at my gates on the morrow. If my equals want a more prosperous future for themselves, they will not betray me.
Your Equal,
The Farmer
The Oligarchs’ Lost Letters is a FREE series from PT examining power, wealth, and control through the fictionalized private words of those who have always held it. Access the entire series on our website.
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