Class Warfare - Why is that a bad thing?

[Temujin]

I think part of the 'class warfare' subtext is simple. "There has never been any class in America since the Civil war and all men are created equal with equal opportunity." This myth, in one form or another, is believed by many. The corrilary is that anyone who makes any noises about helping the poor actually believes there is a disadvantaged class in America, and not just people who are lazy/stupid/trailer trash. That they are trying to drive a wedge into American society by drawing attention to wealth divisions and creating an 'illusion' of class.

The other half of the subtext of course is that 'Class Warfare' is a Marxist concept, and is therefore the mark of the Communist. Are you a Communist? Do you want to take the white and blue from our flag and leave it RED? Yeah, I bet you would, because you're a filthy commie who believes in the myth that we have CLASSES in AMERICA.

The idea of America being a classless society would be delicious irony considering it's historic opposition to communism, that is if it wasn't for the fact that the concept of a classless society also occurs in anarchist and libertarian ideologies; and of course the libertarians are a major component of so-called American conservatives.

[Stark]

I'd imagine class warfare is seen as bad due to America's 20th century communist terror, and the simple fact that the working class might start a 'class war' but they'll always, always lose.

[Zaune]

The other half of the subtext of course is that 'Class Warfare' is a Marxist concept, and is therefore the mark of the Communist. Are you a Communist? Do you want to take the white and blue from our flag and leave it RED? Yeah, I bet you would, because you're a filthy commie who believes in the myth that we have CLASSES in AMERICA.

At least you're merely in denial about it. Forgive me if I sound like a conspiracy theorist, but so much of British government policy over the last thirty-odd years has stifled upward social mobility and widened the wealth gap that I find it hard to believe they aren't doing it on purpose; this 'free schools' policy the Tories are ramming through Parliament isn't even bothering to pretend it's not designed to stack the deck in favour of middle-class parents who know how to game the system. It makes me wonder if Communism would really be all that bad, to be honest; with the exception of the Stalin years it's certainly hard to argue the Russians had it worse than they did under the Romanovs.

Of course, the left hasn't exactly helped this situation by its insistence that equality of opportunity will always correlate to equality of outcome. It's an unpalateable truth, but not everyone who gets crappy grades and ends up scraping a living in menial jobs didn't have a good enough school environment, or has a learning disability or learning difficulties or whatever; some of them are just Not Very Bright. And furthermore, if two people who are Not Very Bright get together and have a kid, that kid has an elevated chance of being Not Very Bright as well. There is no solution to this, or at least no solution that isn't forbidden by both international law and basic human decency; we must simply accept such people for who and what they are.

[montypython]

The other half of the subtext of course is that 'Class Warfare' is a Marxist concept, and is therefore the mark of the Communist. Are you a Communist? Do you want to take the white and blue from our flag and leave it RED? Yeah, I bet you would, because you're a filthy commie who believes in the myth that we have CLASSES in AMERICA.

At least you're merely in denial about it. Forgive me if I sound like a conspiracy theorist, but so much of British government policy over the last thirty-odd years has stifled upward social mobility and widened the wealth gap that I find it hard to believe they aren't doing it on purpose; this 'free schools' policy the Tories are ramming through Parliament isn't even bothering to pretend it's not designed to stack the deck in favour of middle-class parents who know how to game the system. It makes me wonder if Communism would really be all that bad, to be honest; with the exception of the Stalin years it's certainly hard to argue the Russians had it worse than they did under the Romanovs.

Of course, the left hasn't exactly helped this situation by its insistence that equality of opportunity will always correlate to equality of outcome. It's an unpalateable truth, but not everyone who gets crappy grades and ends up scraping a living in menial jobs didn't have a good enough school environment, or has a learning disability or learning difficulties or whatever; some of them are just Not Very Bright. And furthermore, if two people who are Not Very Bright get together and have a kid, that kid has an elevated chance of being Not Very Bright as well. There is no solution to this, or at least no solution that isn't forbidden by both international law and basic human decency; we must simply accept such people for who and what they are.

When Lenin was asked about that very question, his point was that the Right-wing invariably used such arguments to perpetuate economic inequality and monopoly of political power, even though the purpose of the left was not focused on equality of individual outcomes but of economic organization. A better way of putting would be economic democracy and concurrent control over capital rather than concentrated in the hands of a few capitalists.

[Chaotic Neutral]

Truth be told, no one really knows what communism would be like in a a first-world country.

Someone should try that.

[D.Turtle]

And furthermore, if two people who are Not Very Bright get together and have a kid, that kid has an elevated chance of being Not Very Bright as well. There is no solution to this, or at least no solution that isn't forbidden by both international law and basic human decency; we must simply accept such people for who and what they are.

Sorry, but that is completely and totally and empirically false.

Only about 50% of the variance in intelligence is inherited. The level of intelligence is dependent on things like education, etc. Except for (obvious) extreme cases there is simply no reason that it shouldn't be possible for every person to get a good level of education.

The problem is not inherited intelligence, but the influence of the social background on education etc.

So, no, certain children of "not very bright" people are not a lost cause, but rather it demands action to change the situation that these children of "not very bright" people get worse education, a worse social upbringing, etc.

[Lord of the Abyss]

The other half of the subtext of course is that 'Class Warfare' is a Marxist concept, and is therefore the mark of the Communist. Are you a Communist? Do you want to take the white and blue from our flag and leave it RED? Yeah, I bet you would, because you're a filthy commie who believes in the myth that we have CLASSES in AMERICA.

At least you're merely in denial about it. Forgive me if I sound like a conspiracy theorist, but so much of British government policy over the last thirty-odd years has stifled upward social mobility and widened the wealth gap that I find it hard to believe they aren't doing it on purpose; this 'free schools' policy the Tories are ramming through Parliament isn't even bothering to pretend it's not designed to stack the deck in favour of middle-class parents who know how to game the system.

Actually, America is low on the social mobility scale for Western nations.

Despite the widespread belief that the U.S. remains a more mobile society than Europe, economists and sociologists say that in recent decades the typical child starting out in poverty in continental Europe (or in Canada) has had a better chance at prosperity. Miles Corak, an economist for Canada's national statistical agency who edited a recent Cambridge University Press book on mobility in Europe and North America, tweaked dozens of studies of the U.S., Canada and European countries to make them comparable. "The U.S. and Britain appear to stand out as the least mobile societies among the rich countries studied," he finds. France and Germany are somewhat more mobile than the U.S.; Canada and the Nordic countries are much more so.

Of course, the left hasn't exactly helped this situation by its insistence that equality of opportunity will always correlate to equality of outcome. It's an unpalateable truth, but not everyone who gets crappy grades and ends up scraping a living in menial jobs didn't have a good enough school environment, or has a learning disability or learning difficulties or whatever; some of them are just Not Very Bright. And furthermore, if two people who are Not Very Bright get together and have a kid, that kid has an elevated chance of being Not Very Bright as well. There is no solution to this, or at least no solution that isn't forbidden by both international law and basic human decency; we must simply accept such people for who and what they are.

Intelligence has little to do with economic success. It's the amount of money your parents had and the connections you have that matter. The smart poor will likely die poor just as the stupid poor will.

And intelligence tends to move towards the average over generations, anyway.

[Zaune]

The problem is not inherited intelligence, but the influence of the social background on education etc.

I didn't actually intend to say it was completely genetic; personality traits and parental attitudes to education play at least as important a role, and I'd even go so far as to suggest that stupidity is as much a learned behaviour as intelligence. But it's a learned behaviour that teachers can only do so much to correct, particularly after their charges start hitting puberty. We could be doing a hell of a lot better at correcting it, though ask ten different people how and they'll probably give you fifteen different answers, but it's important to have realistic expectations for our success rate.

Truth be told, no one really knows what communism would be like in a a first-world country.

Someone should try that.

Bill Bryson had some quite insightful points about how the British might have coped with it in Notes From A Small Island.

[Kanastrous]

Who cares how fast your pocket is being emptied? What you should be assesing things on is how comfortable a quality of life you have referenced against the ammount of work you do.

The rate at which my pockets get emptied bears on (a) how much I can save for retirement, so as not to be obliged to become a ward of the state toward the end of my life and (b) how much of a cushion I have available so in the case of work drying up - which is sometimes does, for months at a stretch if one is unlucky - we don't have to immediately start doing the headless-chicken dance while trying to avoid going off the cliff.

And while you are welcome to assess your life by whatever standard you see fit, I'm not sure that anyone else "should" be making the same judgments that you do.

The law of diminshing marginal returns tells us [roughly] that for any given increase in income there is a decreasing rate of growth in utlity.

For my part I have not had the slightest difficulty identifying high-utility ways to employ the additional revenues that I earned in, say, 2009 over the revenues earned in, say, 2005. Of course this may be because I have not yet reached an earnings level where the phenomenon you describe really becomes manifest.

Is someone earning 200k after tax really less happy than someone earning 250k after tax? Somehow I doubt it.

I know that the additional $50,000 could be put to a number of very good uses that - for example - could help solidify my future financial security. I don't think that would in any overall way make me generally a happier person but it would improve my security, which in turn ameliorates concerns over financial distress, and would open certain options to me in terms of investments that could prove beneficial. Put it this way: if you don't find that $50,000 makes any particular difference to you in any particular way...send me your $50,000. If you won't miss it at all, and I have uses for it, it seems kind of selfish for you to sit on it instead of sharing .

[D.Turtle]

I didn't actually intend to say it was completely genetic; personality traits and parental attitudes to education play at least as important a role, and I'd even go so far as to suggest that stupidity is as much a learned behaviour as intelligence. But it's a learned behaviour that teachers can only do so much to correct, particularly after their charges start hitting puberty. We could be doing a hell of a lot better at correcting it, though ask ten different people how and they'll probably give you fifteen different answers, but it's important to have realistic expectations for our success rate.

Fair enough - though this is a very important difference from what you originally said.

[Zaune]

Fair enough - though this is a very important difference from what you originally said.

What I originally said was written at 3AM after a couple of beers. Apologies for that.

[Simon_Jester]

I can easily see why people at the lower end of the income ladder being unable to make ends meet is a problem. It's not as readily apparent to me why it's urgently problematic where we're talking about people who are able to get by on their income with a degree of security, while their income is very much less than some other person's. That is, if you can't afford food that's self-evidently a big problem. If you can only afford hamburger once or twice per week while someone across town can afford filet mignon nightly - I can see why that would be unsatisfactory but not so much why it would actually be problematic.

Because if your economic position is such that you can only afford hamburger once or twice a week, imagine how difficult it would be to, say, send your children to college. Or pay medical bills in our high-copay, no-preexisting-conditions system.

Wealth disparities can be intergenerational, which is a great reason to worry when said wealth disparities start getting really big, because they're too likely to become permanent.

Are we talking about using the law to guarantee equity of opportunity, or equity of outcomes? I am a big fan of the former and would agree that without it justice is lacking, but the latter impresses me as immoral.

At a certain point, inequality of outcomes becomes inequality of opportunity. The idea that there's a hard and fast dichotomy between the two, that we can have equal opportunity in a society with highly and increasingly unequal wealth distributions is a chimera.

This is not an action of malice, though many progressives and social democrats and socialists do feel that many rich are actively malicious themselves. This is an action to alter the course of our nation.

Whether a large proportion of one's income is being extracted from one's pocket out of noble high-minded desire for social equalization or merely out of malice doesn't make very much difference if one's primary concern is the rate at which one's pocket is being emptied.

If one would like to have a functioning First World economy to live in over the long run, one might be wise to consider factors other than the rate of pocket-drain.

It will do little good to save up millions for one's retirement if the lower classes have been immiserized to the point where the most profitable activity they can imagine is robbing one's nice little suburban tract home, because they will have one outnumbered.

[Kanastrous]

Because if your economic position is such that you can only afford hamburger once or twice a week, imagine how difficult it would be to, say, send your children to college.

There are scholarship and loan programs designed to benefit promising low-income students. And college is not a necessity for every person and every career path; some proportion of students are going to be better-served by trade/vocational training (for which students likewise should and do receive financial support if they need it).

Or pay medical bills in our high-copay, no-preexisting-conditions system.

That system *is* under revision...

Wealth disparities can be intergenerational, which is a great reason to worry when said wealth disparities start getting really big, because they're too likely to become permanent.

A permanent category of very wealthy people sounds the most problematic if one posits that there's a finite and fixed quantity of wealth in the world and that once they have accumulated it no one else will have a crack at accumulating any wealth of their own (because all available wealth is now taken). Is this the sort of model with which you are working, or do you believe that the problem would be identical in an economy where more wealth can be created as time goes along?

At a certain point, inequality of outcomes becomes inequality of opportunity. The idea that there's a hard and fast dichotomy between the two, that we can have equal opportunity in a society with highly and increasingly unequal wealth distributions is a chimera.

It will do little good to save up millions for one's retirement if the lower classes have been immiserized to the point where the most profitable activity they can imagine is robbing one's nice little suburban tract home, because they will have one outnumbered.

Of course by the time one has accumulated millions the odds seem to be against one's living in a nice little suburban tract home; one will probably be living somewhere with better security...but I see your point.

[Simon_Jester]

There are scholarship and loan programs designed to benefit promising low-income students. And college is not a necessity for every person and every career path; some proportion of students are going to be better-served by trade/vocational training (for which students likewise should and do receive financial support if they need it).

And those scholarship programs are, often as not, funded by taxes.

Also, "college is not a necessity for every person" is nonsense when we're talking about upward mobility. It may not be a necessity for every person, but it's pretty close to a necessity if you want to get into the higher income brackets. If it becomes impractical for the children of low-income parents to obtain a college education, or if they are forced to spread that education out over many years to make it fundable (which delays entry into the skilled labor market), that hurts social mobility.

Suddenly, an inequality of wealth becomes an inequality of opportunity, because there's a correlation between your wealth and your ability to supply opportunities to your children.

Or pay medical bills in our high-copay, no-preexisting-conditions system.

That system *is* under revision...

Yes, and the revisions are pushing us more towards a system funded by taxes. Again. See the pattern?

Wealth disparities can be intergenerational, which is a great reason to worry when said wealth disparities start getting really big, because they're too likely to become permanent.

A permanent category of very wealthy people sounds the most problematic if one posits that there's a finite and fixed quantity of wealth in the world and that once they have accumulated it no one else will have a crack at accumulating any wealth of their own (because all available wealth is now taken). Is this the sort of model with which you are working, or do you believe that the problem would be identical in an economy where more wealth can be created as time goes along?

The latter. And if you stop and think for a minute it will be obvious that most wealth creation opportunities go to those who are already wealthy by default. The most popular engine of wealth creation is investment. People making minimum wage do not invest. You do, to a limited extent; people making ten or a hundred times more money than you do to a much larger extent. So guess who reaps the reward of a successful startup company? The venture capitalists and investors get a lot more of the profits than the guys in the cubicle farms and the factories.

Wealth isn't created out of nothing; it's created out of other wealth. When nearly all the existing wealth belongs to a relatively small fraction of the population, and a lot of what's left over is property that cannot be used to generate more wealth (such as domestic appliances), newly created wealth tends to find its way to the pockets of the people who already had money.

Moreover, I'm actually less concerned about the consequences of a self-perpetuating class of millionaires than I am about a self-perpetuating class of paupers. They're the ones you need to worry about, because they're the ones who are easy marks for political radicalization. They're the ones whose newly born talented members never enter the skilled labor pool because it's too difficult for them to pick up the social skills and education they need to rise to the upper classes.

Having aristocrats is not a problem; they can be supported as long as their bank accounts are available to the economy at large as a fund of investment capital. Having serfs is a problem.

Of course by the time one has accumulated millions the odds seem to be against one's living in a nice little suburban tract home; one will probably be living somewhere with better security...but I see your point.

True. Of course, a few million dollars in retirement savings may not stretch as far as one might think if you're looking at being retired for ten or twenty years. Especially not if there are going to be another few decades' worth of inflation between now and then.

[Patrick Degan]

To sum up: plutocracy, which is what our current economic model is steadily creating, is antithetical to both free democratic government and a First World living standard. And never mind worrying about a self-perpetuating class of millionaires, it's a self-pereptuating class of billionaires that is the worry. Feeding their interests will be what impoverishes the rest of society and lead to some very ugly consequences down the line.