Just a short note.

[flewellyn]

Sometimes, when I voice my concerns that the wealthy have far too much power in our society, I am accused, along with other progressives, of promoting "class warfare".

I have only one response.

The wealthy declared the class war long ago. We are declaring that we have noticed.

Comments

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Functionally speaking, the middle class is a tool of the wealthy to stay in power. Any system of economics is only stable so long as the majority of people feel like they're making out okay; otherwise you have such a large percentage of people who are upset about the distribution of wealth that you end up with something along the lines of the French Revolution. The middle class tips that balance in favor of the "making out okay" without taking up so much of the wealth that the obscenely rich have to worry.

In America, however, there are some special circumstances at work. Here, far more than anywhere in Europe, we buy into the notion that with hard work and determination anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become wealthy (the fact that this is patently untrue notwithstanding - we parade around the very few exceptions as prooof of the rule). We also have a strong nationalistic identity, especially among the lower classes ("America is the greatest country in the world!"), thanks to an incredibly effective propaganda campaign propagated by the obscenely wealthy in this country (Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Rupert Murdoch, et al), as well as the aforementioned divide-and-conquer tactics. So even though we may well be teetering on the brink of too-many-poor for a stable system, those on top keep fanning the flames of patriotism and paranoia as well as holding out the "Don't blame us for being rich, we just worked hard" excuse to turn their attentions elsewhere...and it works.

Yeah, I spend way too much time thinking about these kinds of things. It's depressing.

[ms-daisy-cutter.livejournal.com]

Functionally speaking, the middle class is a tool of the wealthy to stay in power.

Are you opposed to there being a middle class? Personally, I don't think any other economic system is sustainable. As lucretiasheart says, you will never have a perfectly egalitarian system.

I agree with most of your sentiments here, however.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Given that I'm pretty solidly a member of said middle class, it'd be a bit hypocritical of me to be against the concept. :) Sure, it's not a perfect system, but when it comes to something as fundamental as an economic system I'm more than willing to take stability in lieu of something potentially better or worse - change can be great and all, but (to refer to the earlier example of the French Revolution) when there's that much power at stake the revolutionaries rarely end up acting in the best interests of the majority.

That said, I'm very much in favor of government policies aimed at keeping that middle class alive and well, in part due to that desire for stability and also because I think it's morally wrong that some people can take home hundreds of millions of dollars every year and others can barely scrape by on food stamps and WIC warrants. This is partially why it pisses me off so much when the obscenely wealthy take such obvious advantage of the middle and lower classes - propaganda will only go so far, and if they keep being so blatantly uncaring sooner or later enough people will get pissed off to cause some serious trouble for them.