It seems like the obvious flaw in the whole scheme. If there’s no one left to buy, how does anyone at the top keep making money?
The answer is simpler and darker than most people want to hear. These elites don’t think about the world in terms of selling goods to crowds of people. They think in terms of owning what’s left when the crowds are gone. For them, collapse is not the end of the game. Collapse is the moment the board clears and they take everything that remains.
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who counts and who doesn’t
The people who sit on top of this system don’t imagine themselves as vulnerable. They divide the population into two camps.
On one side are the expendables—the people who live paycheck to paycheck, who depend on public health care, public housing, or public schools, who have no way to shield themselves when the bottom falls out. In their eyes, those lives are a cost center, something that drags on resources and needs to be managed, reduced, or erased.
On the other side are the shielded—the wealthy and their networks. They’ve already bought the fallback plans. They’ve got bunkers in the Rockies, compounds in New Zealand, private security companies on retainer, jets fueled and waiting. They aren’t thinking about survival the way ordinary people are. They’re planning to ride out disaster like it’s just another market correction.
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scarcity as a weapon
When most people see empty shelves or energy shortages, they see a crisis that threatens survival. Oligarchs see an opportunity. Fewer people fighting for food, water, and fuel makes those resources easier to control. Scarcity doesn’t shake their world—it stabilizes it.
History shows the same pattern over and over. After the Black Death, when nearly half of Europe’s population was gone, the survivors at the top consolidated land and power. After the crash in 2008, millions lost their homes while billionaires bought them up in bulk and expanded their empires. Scarcity hardens their hold instead of breaking it.
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the arsenal they’re building
The investments tell the story more clearly than any speech.
- Palantir: systems built to predict, monitor, and track.
- Anduril: drones and border tech designed to control territory with machines instead of people.
- Private military outfits that function more like armies than guards.
- Biotech and concierge medicine that promise longer life and exclusive treatments for those who can pay.
These are not tools for strengthening society. These are weapons for protecting a tiny class against everyone else.
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parallel worlds
They aren’t betting on the same systems you and I depend on. They’ve already built around them.
Private satellites beam their communications. Independent power and water systems keep their compounds running. Their supply chains are detached from public ports, grocery stores, or gas stations. Their wealth is locked into webs of shell companies and trusts that survive any government’s collapse.
They’re not worried about whether society can keep the lights on. They’ve already wired their own grid.
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the real question
So if collapse wipes out the many, how do the few get richer?
They don’t need to sell to anyone. They just need to own what’s left. With fewer people alive, with social safety nets gone, with governments too weak to function, control over the basics of survival becomes the only currency that matters. Whoever holds food, energy, water, and security calls the shots.
Mass death doesn’t loosen their grip. It tightens it.
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Stay curious.
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sources & further reading
Why do the rich get richer even during global crises? – Al Jazeera
Why Silicon Valley billionaires are prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand – The Guardian
Trump, Sanders, and the Collapse of the American Oligarchy – Capital Institute
A Curious Stack 
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