Has it come to that - is the US a class system now.

[Joe for Clark]

The dummies that go and do the job and the others that ordain it.

Is that it??


Joe

You know - I really don't want to know.

[SoCalDem]

1. It's pretty much been that way all along (except for a few brief decades)

when "ordinary folks" were conned into thinking they could climb the ladder.

WWII was the "tipping point"... Farm boys and small town boys were sent all over the world in droves, and they came back with new ideas, vistas opened to them that they had never even dreamed of..and the government was there to give them all the tools they needed to achieve things.. Those days are OVER...in spades.

It may actually end up being the case that they were the ONLY generation who was able to really avail themselves of "all the goodies" for alll their lives. Their parents suffered the worst of the dust bowl/depression era during their adult lives, but that narrow sliver of humanity that came of age as WWII started, got the GI Bill when it was fresh and generous, they got union jobs with benefits & pensions, they got $1 down houses, they got cheap cars, and they got Social Security just as their boomer children )brazillions of them) flooded the treasury with more money than was ever necessary to care for them in their old age, so they got extra...Many of them retired from jobs with full pensions, paid off homes that they sold for 10 times what they paid.. (I know an old guy who has a military pension, a post office pension, a city pension and SS...he makes more retird than he ever did when he was working:)...and his wife has a post office pension and SS.. Bewteen them , they are raking in the dough..

so yes.. we are devolving back to where we were before the roaring twenties.. Robber barons sucking up all the available cash, and the rest of us clawing at each other to try and climb past each other on that narrow, rickety ladder..

[Greyhound]

3. On the plus side, that unbridled avarice, after much pain and suffering, brought about the

sweeping changes that made the events described in your reply possible. We might even be bright enough to fully embrace the ideals of socialism this time.

Of course I'm not holding my breath, but still...
:kick:

[lefador]

7. Funny how repugs always refer to the "good ol' days"

... which is code for the 50s. Funnily enough a lot of the prosperity of the 50s was due to the "socialist" policies from the late 30s/40s. Obviously there were caveats, the 50s/60s may have been peachy if you were a white male, females and minorities that's another story.

[Greyhound]

14. You bet. I'm sure the 50s/60s were just as you say, and add that even a

white male had to "go along to get along", otherwise the penalties were just about as harsh.

I'd also add that the real "good old days" were probably the years just prior to and the first 25 - 30 of the last turn of the century. Now those were some great times.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=546728&mesg_id=546772
:kick:

[Lerkfish]

10. a very apt summary. If I could reccomend a single post, I would here.

[Prophet 451]

2. Always was

When I took PoliSci, the lecturer had a saying "All politics is class politics". That was in England where the old class system (which was mainly about ancestry) finally collapsed because of Thatcher (about teh only thing we can thank her for). Now, we have the same class system you do, it's all about money and how you make it.

Look at the Repug crusades and the majority of them; throwing pinty-headed liberals out of government, religion, the latte libel; the majority of them are about class. Playing off working-class resentment of the middle class while the upper-classes and aritocracy (the upper-upper class) quietly continue amassing wealth and power. They set the middle and working class to scrapping over a pay hike of a dollar while the CEO pulls down millions.

Wasn't always this way. Not that long ago, a guy called Huey Long got the working class and the middle class to work together (to an extent) in trying to get a fair shake from the system but the people, while not bad as such, are very easily distracted so the R's set about distracting them with things like the latte libel, abortion, same-sex marriage and so on to distract the working class from the simple fact that the money in their pocket is worth less now, in real terms, than it was during the sixties.

[Joe for Clark]

4. Well, when I took the class - Carter was president too.

This so inheriantly dangerous.

You get this feeling- we are about to self-destruct as a society.

My god - how did it come to this?? For us?? We are the greatest society the world ever knew---how?

Joe

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. The love of power exceeds the power of love in this country,

and the persons who take such a tack rise to places where they can influence the course of the entire country. IE, they are making the laws that enable what you see all around you.

[Joe for Clark]

9. Dad ran an oil company - once - you know when oil company's

were run by people.

They were run by engineers once-now by lawyers - dear god.

Doesn't matter right now I guess.

I find myself in exactly the same position my gradparents did - just get MY kid out of there.

It is happening in real time -
Fast.

Not even enough time to move



Joe

[Greyhound]

11. They've always been there, nibbling at the edges, tweaking the system to

work for them.

The Foundation
The 14th amendment, or more accurately the twisting of its stated intent.
The business plot.
The Federal Reserve Act.
The assassination of the Kingfish.
The New Deal, not what most think it was, but what it really accomplished.

The Implementation
The assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK.
The elections of 1968 and 1972.
The Raygun revolution through today.

What most of us fail to understand is that there has always been another America, one that few are aware of except in vague terms, Noam Chomsky speaks of it regularly and works within it, apparently trying to influence it, but I don't see that he's had much success.

The ruling class lives in an America that few of us ever see, they have their own schools, their own clubs, their own neighborhoods, their own jobs, etc. It's not some vast conspiracy, but rather many different small conspiracies and collusions, that occasionally work against each other, but they share generally similar goals and thus, tend to produce similar outcomes.

Anyway, you asked.

Another opinionated asshole :hi:

[NashVegas]

20. Good Post

I've been fortunate to work for a company that's owned by old money, in the South where class lines are so much more visible. Your last paragraph is quite accurate, methinks.

I will say this, though. There is a difference between the old money and the newer breed of wealthy in this country. Old money are less snobby, IMO. If you have good social manners and don't have a chip on your shoulder, you may find them willing to invest in you. Everyone knows someone who blew the family fortune a generation or three ago. They know they can be brought down, but they also know that with the right tools - social tools, they can rise right back up.

Nearly broke, and need a new car? Someone probably knows someone who has something in their driveway they want to get rid of and would practically give it away - to the right person, of course. If you wanted to start up your own business, and could show a good plan, you have investors, your friends, who accept the risks going in and - unlike the bank who doesn't care what happens as long as they make their money back - *want* to see *you* succeed (everyone wants the ego gratification of backing a winner). They will offer advice if you ask, they will introduce you to people who can offer advice and good connections. If all fails in spite of that, they'll cut their losses on the business, but they won't abandon you, personally.

Being in this atmosphere has driven home the 4th grade social studies lesson of interdependence. (What? You think just because you're not rich, you have nothing to offer?) I think this is the one area that the New Deal and Great Society failed. Those governmental programs that accompanied all this stressed independence. Throw money at people and leave them alone to succeed or fail. I admire the Hawaiian system that directly engages with people.

The new Bush era wants to chuck away those programs, but the people behind it have no interest in bringing others up, with them.

[Prophet 451]

15. Lot of reasons

I'd question the "greatest society" part but that's mainly vestigal patriotism on my part.

There were a lot of factors. I think one of the most important was that the USA spent fifty years fighting communism (the Soviet version anyway) and became culturally engaged in a logical fallicy called teh "excluded middle". The thought process runs that since communism is bad, capitalism must be good and therefore, capitalism will solve everything. You see it today with the "free market uber alles" crowd. In the words of the late Molly Ivins, "Capitalism is a wonderful tool for creating wealth but people cheat". The USSR over-regulated everything (prior to just going completely tonto in the late-sixties/early-seventies) so the US went the opposite route of eliminating regulation on everything. That created a cultural attitude where the pursuit of money and/or power became everything.

Then, in the eighties, along came Thatcher and Reagan to enable that vision by removing the checks placed on the system after the backlash of the Gilded Age. Clinton, while good at many things, didn't do much to reverse that and in some ways (NAFTA) made things worse and then Chimpy appeared and removed even the semblance of civility.

The basic rule of thumb is that corporations will always make their product as cheaply as they can, sell at the highest price then can, employ the minimum amount of workers they need, for the lowest wages they can get away with. Trickle-down ("voodoo", "supply-side") economics doesn't work and never did because it forgot that basic principle. Economics is complicated and I'm not going to get into it here but the fact is that since the sixties, the average worker productivity has gone up by somewhere between 25-40% while in the same time, the real value of the average wage has decreased by about 14%. And anyone who pointed out the problem tended to either become the victim of character assassination or, sometimes, genuine assassination (MLK, Huey "Kingfish" Long). I'm not saying that the powerful elites were responsible for those deaths (although there's evidence to suggest it) but certainly, they didn't mourn overmuch.

[Greyhound]

5. Wow, another reference to the Kingfish! Cool. There ain't many here

that care to discuss what he managed to accomplish before they killed him, co-opted his ideas, watered them down, and used them to further their own careers/agendas.

I think the time may be near that we can do it again. They think they hold all the cards, and it's true that they own the deck, but the game is still on and we have the real power if we can only understand that. The next decade should make the difference if it's not already too late.

Is it worse enough yet?
:kick:

[Prophet 451]

16. I'm not so sure we can

I think the power imbalance may have gone on too long and become too pronounced by now to achieve anything like victory.

Which doesn't mean we shouldn't fight. Always, always fight. I might be undecided on whether genuine socialism can work but that doesn't mean it isn't worth a try.

[Greyhound]

18. I agree, but that's the wonderful thing about socialism, it isn't an all or nothing

system, each nation (even us, shh, don't tell anybody) decides how much to implement where and how.

As for the imbalance of power, until they have a market to replace us, we still hold all of the power. Europe can't make up more than about a tenth of what we buy for various reasons, and the Chinese and Indians are still years away from having the necessary middle-class and the disposable income that comes with it to support their businesses, so right now we still have the power. Of course if we remain asleep too much longer that will change and we will be lost, left holding an empty bag and crying over what could have been.

[Sadie4629]

8. Was this in reference to an earlier discussion?

Guess I still think it is possible to get ahead. If you think education is the key to getting ahead, there are LOTS of scholarships available from private individuals and foundations that make a college education a real possibility for nearly any kid.

[sarge43]

12. Every society has a class system

The real question is, do we have a caste system? Locked in place from birth.

[Joe for Clark]

13. No in thiis country -

you know what you suggest??

[rman]

17. i'm curious: what is your definition of "class"?

[WinkyDink]

25. Of course, we do! We merely eschew the titles of nobility! AND, in fact, we LOVE the RICH!

Hence, "The Apprentice". "Deal or No Deal". "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous". "The Simple Life". HGTV's "Vacation Homes", "What Can You Buy With $2 Million?", etc.

[zippy890]

19. Yes - American entropy is the result

"The great problem of the age is inherited wealth, and the great danger is the sons and grandsons of the super-rich. We have become a nation of dynasties -- political dynasties, newspaper dynasties, sports franchise dynasties, Hollywood dynasties, literary dynasties.
...
If you step back and look at the problems America has had in the last several years, you will see these have often been problems of inherited wealth -- of what happens to a business in the third generation. In other words, we are led by the sons of rich men and their sons.
...
In the last few decades, because laws have allowed them to do it, the grandsons and great-grandsons of a bunch of self made men have pulled the ladder up behind them."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rich-cohen/american-entropy_b_44642.html


That ladder has been pulled WAY up, WAY out of reach.

read that article, its really interesting.

[many a good man]

21. Good article

Thanks, zip. This thread is an interesting discussion.

There has always been class distinction, whether we talk about it or not.

What has made America different since day one was the rejection of rigid class hierarchies. In Old Europe class mobility was impossible, the different classes could not even mingle. In America these distinctions were lessened and opportunity was expanded. In relative terms, at least.

I would argue that that is what made America a great country: opening up opportunity to the great mass of people to whom it had always been denied. As income inequality increases, this vitality is eroded.

Solution: bring back the 90% upper tax bracket and restore the inheritance tax. The cascading effects would transform the economy and society.

[Orsino]

22. Once we got courts to start determining that all those rights...

...enumerated in the Constitution really were supposed to apply to everyone, we held the pigs at bay. About the time some corrupt bastard defined money as speech, the liberating trend ended, and it was only a matter of time before the robber barons owned our sorry asses again.

[Nikia]

23. There always has been a class system to some extent

I was not as aware of class as some when I was growing up, but when I look back on it, there were issues there the entire time. As an adult, I struggle with my class identity, both socially and within the company where I work. The rich often do oppress the poor, but sometimes the poor do resent people who have more than them whether it is materially or in terms of education or better working conditions too. Just as I felt that I had to choose on the playground while not quite knowing why, I feel that I have to choose at work as well.

[WinkyDink]

24. Like forever? Yep.

[LWolf]

26. Since when HASN'T it been? n/t