Posted on 03/09/2019 10:17:08 AM PST by blam
A middle class that outnumbers the combined poor and aristocracy is a relatively new phenomenon, dating back to around 1900. The rise of the middle class was the result of Industrial Revolution capitalism. It has been one of the most significant and epochal developments in history, yet the intellectual reaction for the most part has been to either ignore it or treat it with disdain. Now the project to destroy the middle class is well under way, with unpredictable and uncontrollable consequences that promise to be just as epochal as its creation.
Intellectual condescension towards the middle class is so common it’s a cliché. What’s rare are attempts to go back in history and see things through the perspectives of that despised group and its progenitors, the poor.
In 1800, virtually everyone was poor, living under conditions of deprivation and grinding poverty. Even being wealthy was no picnic; present-day poverty-line Americans live better. Life expectancy was an estimated twenty-nine years. Farming, the occupation of most, was dangerous, backbreaking labor from dawn to dusk. Most of those so engaged eked out a tenuous subsistence. There was no electricity, no running water, primitive sanitation and health care, and none of the machinery, gadgets, and appliances we take for granted. Only a few wealthy poets who didn’t have to wrest a living from nature waxed euphoric about its “joys.”
As the nineteenth century progressed, primitive factories, mostly in cities, began producing goods of better quality, in more quantity, and at lower cost than had been possible by artisans handcrafting their wares. No doubt conditions in those factories were abysmal—long hours, pittance pay, child labor, dangerous and filthy conditions, and horrible accidents and injuries. All that has been well-chronicled and dramatized, but an important point gets overlooked.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at straightlinelogic.com ...
Condescension is the right word. Our replacements are at the border fence in El Paso. They no longer want us. They intend to publicly finance our replacements.
The parable of boiling a frog comes to mind.
Leftists complain about Third World “sweat shops”. But working in a factory results in a reliable income to buy food with, unlike doing subsistence farming, where a drought means your family dies of starvation.
We’re just days away from fundamentally-transforming America!
Thanks liberals. Thanks a lot. Great job destroying the country.
The middle class is unsuitable for politics.
The experiment has failed. To prevent genocide we need a Sulla, or a Pinochet.
Not a bug, but a feature.
I must admit, the Democrats did a fine job of destroying the country with Barack. So much that I hardly recognize it.
Hat’s off to Jorge, too. Pelosi speaks glowingly of him, how gracious he was, and now he’s besties with Barack and Mooch.
This oped may be the best history and economic lesson of this decade.
We either help President Trump turn back the daily attacks on the Deplorable/us, or our children and grandkids if there are any will live terrible life styles.
The left wants a country featuring 2% “Elite”,25% “Middle Class” and 73% “Welfare Parasite”.
This country has always had a "middle class" -- even before the industrial revolution (despite what the author says). Before the Civil War we called them sharecroppers or tenant farmers. They weren't slaves, but they didn't live much better than slaves. Eventually they could be free men, but not necessarily.
The difference in the last 150 years is that this "middle class" can now vote, and has become part of a class structure that would never exist outside a democratic process whereby people feel entitled to use their government to reach their hands into someone else's pockets in the interest of "fairness."
The "middle class" as we know it today is little more than a fictional construct that we use to avoid facing the reality that we simply cannot afford what we have come to see as our God-given standard of living.
US Decline - bump for later....
Communism’s greatest enemy is not the capitalist, rather it is the bourgeiosie, the fat, happy middle-class wage drone or shopkeeper who has little concern beyond his creature comforts. That group is most likely to resist change simply because of inertia.
Should be posted in “Bloggers”, not “News”, per FR rules.
I don’t know... Who are all of the people around me buying 4 to 5 hundred thousand dollar homes, 75 thousand dollar trucks plus a 35 thousand dollar wifes car and going on vacation twice yearly? Damn near everyone in my solidly middle class burg is burning money like they can print it.
When will a frog jump out of the slowly boiling pot?
” How Much Longer Will The Middle Class Politely Tolerate Its Own Destruction?”
Obama did all he could to destroy the Middle Class. The Democrats are continuing that effort because they know a country with a strong Middle Class is very difficult to overthrow. Pres. Trump is trying to rebuild it.
” How Much Longer Will The Middle Class Politely Tolerate Its Own Destruction?”
Obama did all he could to destroy the Middle Class. The Democrats are continuing that effort because they know a country with a strong Middle Class is very difficult to overthrow. Pres. Trump is trying to rebuild it.
Ahhhh...does Venezuela ring a bell? They waited too damn long to make their move to get their country back...TOO DAMN LATE!! WE ARE LOOKING AT OUR FUTURE folks!! ....becoming toooo damn late!!
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