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.
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(Excerpt) Read more at straightlinelogic.com ...
Taxes in the big cities are a problem, and globalism.
But also honestly people vote against their own economic best interest for other social reasons. They vote to give tax breaks to the richest few and don’t support raising minimum wages at the same time and don’t like unions. They forget the reasons things got better in the 1900s was from workers rebellions that people died for. Jeff Bezos is basically the Carnegie or Vanderbilt of his day. Its that thing where southern working class whites were Democrats until LBJ signed civil rights and ended jim crow and they all went republican and it has never been corrected
And condescension towards the middle class is utterly amazing. I cannot point to a single place where it’s obvious that the elitist class is Superior in any way
Nothing is going to change except further degradation of our lives. The only thing that could change that is if some unanticipated and uncontrollable situation spills out of control. With BLM protests, Baltimore, and Ferguson, it was probably the closest that situations came to going viral.
It always amazes me to see that childlike impulse among some conservatives for a dictator or a murderer like sulla or Pinochet. Think it all the way through if you’re saving the American Republic by having a murderous dictator, you’re kind of missing the whole point
Exactly. The early communist quickly realized that communism would never work in a society like America, and that a revolution would never happen based on economics. That is when they turned towards the method of cultural communism as the only possible way to launch a revolution in America.
Throughout history, that's been a feature of civilizations....a comfortable middle class that have everything to lose if they didn't toe the line.
We're close to that now. Only government workers get safe pensions, most have job security, and excellent salaries which make their lives very comfortable.
A middle class that doesn't depend on government is already a bit of a myth. Most companies depend on government contracts or government workers using their products/services to be successful.
“if you’re saving the American Republic by having a murderous dictator”
I don’t think there’s a republic left to save. I’m concerned with the nation.
“Millions of people braved the dangers of travel, the uncertainties of life in a new land, the difficulties of learning a new language, the prejudice and hostility they knew they would encounter, the daunting challenges of starting at the bottom, and the absence of government giveaways and freely chose to immigrate to the United States.”
Heck, that was the easy part. They also had to deal with engines ready to take their heads off if they left the East Coast.
Good blog post.
Even now, with virulent vitriol and hatred on full display, much of it is minimized or rationalized by people who should know better. The corruption of the “middle-grounders” may run deeper than the statists and the collectivists, who at least no longer try to hide their agenda and acknowledge that freedom cannot coexist with the unlimited governmental power they covet.
Someone has a clue... and pray tell, where do we go from here?
It’s honestly the complete and total opposite on just economics not social issues, and that’s the problem
Once they're in power, the middle class will be in the 5% range and welfare will be cut to nothing. They want all of us beholden with our lives on the line - - no one outside the 'liberal elite 2%' will be spared.
Good article. Thanks for posting!
My how the left does hate the middle class.
That’s why they are trying to devise a UBI system. (universal basic income).
When the rat word games don’t effect us anymore and the tiger is tired of getting poked and is let out of his cage
Excellent article. Lots of food for thought. Thanks for posting.
“Does it seem like it’s getting warmer in here to you?” said the frog.
An interesting (at least to me)sidebar on this is s tidbit of history.....during the reign of Henry VIII, a group of monks at an English monastery which specialized in blacksmithery to support the monastery were on the verge of inventing the Bessemer process for making steel on a large scale. Then “can’t keep it in his codpiece” Henry disbanded the monasteries, and the technology lost.
Imagine where we would be if the Industrial Revolution had begun in 1550 instead of 1850.
Bookmark.
The response of much of America’s middle class seems to be forego children, live a better standard of living than parents have, and die.
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