Class struggle: It's the 80% vs. the 20%

[Wilson23]

Socialist thinking is on the rise in America -- https://forum.literotica.com/threads/most-under-40-voters-favor-socialism.1640335/ -- and that means paying attention to the concept of class struggle. Marx was at least correct in observing that different social classes often have conflicting interests.

In America at present, the class enemy of the proletariat -- defined as everybody who HAS to work for a living -- is the UPPER MIDDLE CLASS, the top 20%. These are not the 1%, who at least for these purposes can be considered a subset of them. The upper-middles work. Their existence only presents a political PROBLEM because they wield political CLOUT out of proportion to their numbers -- whatever they want will happen, whatever they don't will not.

We need to figure out how to address THAT problem.

 

[Wilson23]

Now, one could make a case that the 20% are QUALIFIED to be a ruling class by virtue of superior education. If we had a Commie revolution, they would still be in charge for that reason. That's how it went in Russia. (Cambodia is a very different story.)

But you can never really COUNT on a ruling class to rule in the interests of those outside that class -- can you?

 

[Wilson23]

Radical American politics today are all about the plutocracy. The upper-middles are not part of it -- but there is no space between them politically.

 

[Wilson23]

https://www.salon.com/2017/09/10/en...class-is-hoarding-the-american-dream_partner/

Enough with the top 1 percent: The top 20 percent, the upper middle class, is hoarding the American dream​

Scholar Richard Reeves points out the real winners in the economy as Congress eyes tax reform​

Already President Trump and the Democrats are trading clichés in the opening skirmishes over Trump’s tax reform proposals. Yet both are missing the bigger reality of who are the economy’s winners and losers — a pattern that’s only grown over recent decades.

Trump, of course, wants to cut corporate taxes, and consolidate and lower rates for income tax brackets, among other things. All one really needs to know there is that he is dubiously assuming the savings for businesses will “trickle down” to employees in jobs and wages. Leading Democrats, in response, are being misleading in a different way.

“If the president wants to use populism to sell his tax plan, he ought to consider actually putting his money where his mouth is and putting forward a plan that puts the middle class, not the top 1 percent, first,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Trump’s plan mostly would benefit the biggest corporations and the wealthiest individuals. But Schumer’s Occupy-Wall-Street-like whack at the top 1 percent and defense of the so-called middle class is muddled in a different way. That’s because it isn’t the super rich, but the upper middle class — representing the top 20 percent, or households making at least $117,000 a year — that disproportionately have been doing better than the rest of Americans, the bottom 80 percent. Their tax breaks are one reason why.

“The upper middle class, the top fifth, broadly, and above, not only maintain their position very nicely, but perpetuate it over generations more effectively than in the United Kingdom,” said Richard Reeves, a Brookings Institution scholar and author of “Dream Hoarders: How The American Upper Middle Class is Leaving Everyone in the Dust, Why That is a Problem, and What to Do About It”. “And yet, that that’s not so widely known or seen as a problem, because of the kind of myth of classlessness that has developed in the U.S.”

 

[Wilson23]

Here's the thing: The working class and the middle class ARE NOT THE SAME, never were.

But pols say they're doing everything they do for "the middle class," confident most hearers will think that means them, factory workers included.

 

[SebastianHolt]

Socialist thinking is on the rise in America -- https://forum.literotica.com/threads/most-under-40-voters-favor-socialism.1640335/ -- and that means paying attention to the concept of class struggle. Marx was at least correct in observing that different social classes often have conflicting interests.

In America at present, the class enemy of the proletariat -- defined as everybody who HAS to work for a living -- is the UPPER MIDDLE CLASS, the top 20%. These are not the 1%, who at least for these purposes can be considered a subset of them. The upper-middles work. Their existence only presents a political PROBLEM because they wield political CLOUT out of proportion to their numbers -- whatever they want will happen, whatever they don't will not.

We need to figure out how to address THAT problem.

you need to spend less time on a porn website and more time educating yourself. stop trying to smoke the kool-aid and get busy. your retirement will suck but I'm sure you are okay with a life in poverty

 

[Wilson23]

you need to spend less time on a porn website and more time educating yourself.

This IS a way of educating oneself.

 

[SebastianHolt]

This IS a way of educating oneself.

but you are always wrong and always left

 

[Wilson23]

but you are always wrong and always left

I can count on one hand the number of times I've been wrong on THIS board.

 

[SebastianHolt]

I can count on one hand the number of times I've been wrong on THIS board.

sure, you just keep on counting the same fingers over and over again. you are wrong way more than you are right. hell, you never lean right

 

[Wilson23]

sure, you just keep on counting the same fingers over and over again. you are wrong way more than you are right. hell, you never lean right

Those who ARE right never LEAN right.

 

[SebastianHolt]

Those who ARE right never LEAN right.

another embarrassing post

 

[Wilson23]

another embarrassing post

Its truth is borne out by the most cursory examination of the PB. The ones most often WRONG here are the RWs.

 

[SebastianHolt]

Its truth is borne out by the most cursory examination of the PB. The ones most often WRONG here are the RWs.

keep dreaming your failed dreams

 

[Wilson23]

keep dreaming your failed dreams

You know I'm right.

 

[SebastianHolt]

You know I'm right.

I'm willing to wager on this as you are hardly ever correct

 

[Wilson23]

I'm willing to wager on this as you are hardly ever correct

It is pointless to place a bet one has no way to collect.

 

[SebastianHolt]

It is pointless to place a bet one has no way to collect.

and since you are more often wrong ... and clearly in mental distress as you widdle away deranged over Trump, one has to worrya bout your mental fortitude as to whether you would pay or not

 

[Wilson23]

Nothing posted yet calls the premise into question: The problem is the 20%, not the 1%.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Nothing posted yet calls the premise into question: The problem is the 20%, not the 1%.

The challenge is how to get the people who work for a living to unite against the rent collectors. Targeting the upper 20% is counterproductive.

“Workers of the world, unite!” is a powerful rallying cry. We need solidarity between the doctors and the janitors, not infighting.

 

[SebastianHolt]

The working class and the middle class ARE NOT THE SAME

wrong ... they were

 

[Wilson23]

The challenge is how to get the people who work for a living to unite against the rent collectors. Targeting the upper 20% is counterproductive.

Ain't the rent collectors in that 20%?

 

[Wilson23]

wrong ... they were

They were NEARLY the same class for a brief period in American history, '50s through '70s, but never before or since.

 

[SebastianHolt]

They were NEARLY the same class for a brief period in American history, '50s through '70s, but never before or since.

Glad, you have finally realized that I'm right.... and omg, are you learning from your mistakes?

 

[Wilson23]

Glad, you have finally realized that I'm right.... and omg, are you learning from your mistakes?

The only thing that made it possible for the boundary between the middle and working classes to blur was STRONG UNIONS.