For the liberal ideologue, poverty is not an economic condition per se, a temporary condition of low earnings that can be alleviated over time as those who are poor pursue opportunities and become better off. Rather, it is a permanent and reified condition: the poor are not just those who are earning less than others; they are those who have been made poor and who will continue poor, poverty being inherited in the manner that aristocratic titles may be in Britain. One acquires one's victimhood and retains it all one's life and passes it down to one's progeny, and just as aristocratic titles retain their own perks, so does impoverishment.
Americans have been taught for years to revere victims, give them moral superiority, and seek some way in which they may consider themselves victims, because that is the highest title of honor one may achieve. But only certain victims, of course, are true victims: only those belonging to a particular group annointed by the media and academic classes, and then promoted by the government because of their usefulness to it.
Hear! Hear!
IMHO, a great deal of this modern day mind set can be traced back to the late 1950's ('radical chic') and throughout the 1960's ('down with the Establishment,power to the people'). The glorification of the "common man", followed by his ways, and manners, and attitude(s).
“aristocratic titles”
Class divisions and aristocracies have been implemented in america already. That was what most came to America to get beyond.