America has long had a ruling class but the public was willing to tolerate it during the three decades after World War II, when prosperity was widely shared and when the Soviet Union posed a palpable threat. Then, the ruling class seemed benevolent and wise.
Yet in the last three decades – when almost all the nation’s economic gains have gone to the top while the wages of most people have gone nowhere – the ruling class has seemed to pad its own pockets at the expense of the rest of America.
We’ve witnessed self-dealing on a monumental scale – starting with the junk-bond takeovers of the 1980s, followed by the Savings and Loan crisis, the corporate scandals of the early 2000s (Enron, Adelphia, Global Crossing, Tyco, Worldcom), and culminating in the near meltdown of Wall Street in 2008 and the taxpayer-financed bailout.
Along the way, millions of Americans lost their jobs their savings, and their homes.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has opened the floodgates to big money in politics wider than ever. Taxes have been cut on top incomes, tax loopholes widened, government debt has grown, public services have been cut. And not a single Wall Street executive has gone to jail.
The game seems rigged – riddled with abuses of power, crony capitalism, and corporate welfare.
—Robert Reich
The Revolt Against the Ruling Class
Guy was in the cabinet.
But even the assertion that America has a ruling class is not allowed in mainstream media. Treated as crazy; treated like claims of alien abduction. Actually, it gets even less respect than alien abduction.
Yeah, because there are no classes in America. And we know this because economic mobility is even worse here than in the UK (which is about the worst in the developed world).