Have we all forgotten about a little book Joseph Alsop wrote?
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/joseph-epstein/j...
America Has a Ruling Class
21–22 of 22 posts
Re: America Has a Ruling Class
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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." US economic output has remained on the same sharp rising slope since 1975 as between 1945 and 1975. But since 1975, all of that increased income has been diverted to the ruling class, while the rest of the nation has been stuck at 1975 levels. If $300,000/y seems to you lik…
I did not claim it was upperclass. My claim was that calling it underclass is absurd.
Compared to the likes of Bezos, Musk or Gates, every sub-C-level FAANG employee is part of the underclass.
Of course it's a gradient rather than a clear dividing line, but there are people who make 100x, 1,000x, 10,000x or more of what the lowest of the low are making and there's no gradual progression from the latter to the former. There are massive gaps that are impossible to bridge.
If you consider that the average person's economic situation worsened throughout 2020 while all the top billionaires drastically increased their wealth (if not proportionately, then at least in absolute numbers), this only widens that gap.
I agree that putting a single dividing line at $299k or whatever is silly, but yes, even a person making $299k is economically insignificant to a triple digit billionaire (or just any billionaire, to be honest). The divide isn't between people making $299k and people making $300k, the divide is between billionaires and people making subsistence level or less -- everyone else just falls on the gradient in between.