America Has a Ruling Class
nytimes.com
America Has a Ruling Class
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: America Has a Ruling Class
#2"First, we should stop confusing consumer preferences with power."
Re: America Has a Ruling Class
#3The stereotypical NYT reader is precisely the ruling class.
The ones that always say their opinions are not a matter of politics.
The ones that claim "reality has a liberal bias."
When faced with divergent opinions or norms, goes straight to "misinformed" or "uneducated" for a label.
Generally speaking, they're nauseating, moralistic hypocrites.
Re: America Has a Ruling Class
#4America has a set of Oligarchs, as many nations do.
Re: America Has a Ruling Class
#5Why the hell isn't this obvious? Presidents are recruited out of senators. Being a senator often runs in the family. And there are clans providing a lot of the past and current leadership, think Kennedy, Bush, Clinton. Of course there is a ruling class.
Re: America Has a Ruling Class
#6Pretending to be part of the working masses is simply good PR and positioning for one's career as a ruler, and these folks have figured it out a while ago. They're hustling like everybody else, good for them.
If they can have the cake and eat it too, why wouldn't they? The voters seem to eat it up every time and give them no reason to stop the act.
Re: America Has a Ruling Class
#7There is a ruling class, and there is an underclass. There used to be a middle class, but that has been squeezed out of existence. In the ruling class, typical income is above $1M. If there were still a middle class, it would be between there and $300K, but their number is demographically negligible.
It has been the great triumph of the effort to eliminate the middle class that an overwhelming majority of the underclass do not know they are; and firmly believe they are, as their grandparents were, middle-class. A mark of that success is that instead of resenting having been driven out of the middle class, people resent learning that they are not in it.
Re: America Has a Ruling Class
#8There is a ruling class, and there is an underclass. There used to be a middle class, but that has been squeezed out of existence. In the ruling class, typical income is above $1M. If there were still a middle class, it would be between there and $300K, but their number is demographically negligible. It has been the great triumph of the effort to eliminate the middle class that an overwhelming majority of the undercl…
You think an income of $299K is underclass?
Re: America Has a Ruling Class
#9There is a ruling class, and there is an underclass. There used to be a middle class, but that has been squeezed out of existence. In the ruling class, typical income is above $1M. If there were still a middle class, it would be between there and $300K, but their number is demographically negligible. It has been the great triumph of the effort to eliminate the middle class that an overwhelming majority of the undercl…
You think an income of $299K is underclass?
The point isn't the exact numbers, the point is the divide. You're unlikely to make the jump from the underclass to the ruling class nor vice versa because the superstructure keeps you in place.
If you have wealthy and powerful parents with wealthy and powerful friends, you'll likely end up being wealthy and powerful yourself even if you totally screw up your life choices. You probably still end up going to an elite college, hanging around in elite business clubs meeting other people in the same position as you.
No amount of hussle is going to turn someone with no familial wealth or connections into a Clinton, Kennedy or Bush. Just as no amount of staying late and working hard is going to turn a factory worker into a Bezos, Musk or Gates. The "family and friends" round of investment isn't going to yield much if neither your friends nor family have any wealth to spare.
Re: America Has a Ruling Class
#10America has a set of Oligarchs, as many nations do.
The governor of my state is a literal billionaire trust fund baby. His only prior achievements were in "philanthropy" and his singular legislative accomplishment is a corrupt scheme for the cannabis industry. It's like a comic book. The crazy thing is most people don't seem to mind.