They may not be in charge, but their ideas are: Thomas Jefferson was a great believer in the "citizen-farmer" class. It was also this same class of people that helped Rome gain the power that it did. This was the equivalent to a modern middle class-it had a stake in what goes on in big government. Of course everyday we drift farther and farther from that mold-we become more and more like the Roman empire, and not the republic. Lifetime politicians who serve only the mob, (the great class of the-what did the commies call it, the proletariat or some such?)of idle non workers living off the govt. dole. ect and so forth....
And what finally did in Greek power-democracy man, pure democracy=the tyranny of the majority.
the great class of the-what did the commies call it, the proletariat or some such? Uhmm, you have it jumbled up.
The proletariat is the non-propertied class that lives by selling their labor.
The bourgeoisie is the class with property living on trade.
The truly idle classes in Marx-Leninist theory are the capitalist (propertied and living on interest income of wealth) and the priesthood who lived on the donations of others.