4 ms·

Not mutually exclusive, 'elite' never meant middle class, and you used to be able to attain a middle class lifestyle without having to be 'elite'.

SantalBlush 5y ago
I agree, and I think non-elites should also have more access to middle class earnings and status. They don't, and many of them are also frustrated at the lack of opportunities they face. But if I were to say that we have a non-elite overproduction as a result, that would sound stupid, because it is.
jjoonathan 5y ago
Right. That never stopped being the case and should never stop being the case. The concept of "elite overproduction" wants to trick you into thinking it did. The "elite overproduction" framework begs you to not view the middle class as a group of people who have achieved a balance where they do valuable work and are rewarded with nice things, but as a group of scheming do-nothings who pose a burden to society as they foolishly aspire to elite-hood and repeatedly fail. It's a laser-guided propaganda missile aimed directly at a fault line in populist movements that have been gaining steam recently.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  That's an interesting thought, I'm not sure I agree but I'd have to think about it more to differ.
- imtringued 5y ago
  I don't see that in the "elite overproduction" framework. I see a bunch of desperate kids trying to stay in the middle class that their parents supposedly were in. You need an increased level of specialization to stand still.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  Let me offer a defense of the meme, because I think you've got the causality backwards. I think that because I'm of an age where, had I gone straight to university after high school, I'd have graduated straight into the teeth of the 2008 recession. So I know how my cohort thinks about plight of the middle class. And almost everyone my age or younger, given a chance to think about it, agrees that the middle class cannot be saved. It's considered a lost cause, and among those who do believe it can be saved, their arguments amount to a blinking confusion and insistence that it must. Given that people like me have only ever participated in the economy during a time when the middle class was shrinking, what are we to do? Most of us agree, if our future is a world of a few 'haves' and many 'have nots', priority one is to become a 'have'. Even from the most moral stance imaginable, a 'have not' has no ability to help others. Hence, too many of us try to get into the elite. To aim for the middle class is to aim for grinding poverty, and why would anyone?

SantalBlush 5y ago

I agree, and I think non-elites should also have more access to middle class earnings and status. They don't, and many of them are also frustrated at the lack of opportunities they face. But if I were to say that we have a non-elite overproduction as a result, that would sound stupid, because it is.

jjoonathan 5y ago

Right. That never stopped being the case and should never stop being the case. The concept of "elite overproduction" wants to trick you into thinking it did. The "elite overproduction" framework begs you to not view the middle class as a group of people who have achieved a balance where they do valuable work and are rewarded with nice things, but as a group of scheming do-nothings who pose a burden to society as they foolishly aspire to elite-hood and repeatedly fail. It's a laser-guided propaganda missile aimed directly at a fault line in populist movements that have been gaining steam recently.

refenestrator 5y ago
That's an interesting thought, I'm not sure I agree but I'd have to think about it more to differ.
imtringued 5y ago
I don't see that in the "elite overproduction" framework. I see a bunch of desperate kids trying to stay in the middle class that their parents supposedly were in. You need an increased level of specialization to stand still.
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
Let me offer a defense of the meme, because I think you've got the causality backwards. I think that because I'm of an age where, had I gone straight to university after high school, I'd have graduated straight into the teeth of the 2008 recession. So I know how my cohort thinks about plight of the middle class. And almost everyone my age or younger, given a chance to think about it, agrees that the middle class cannot be saved. It's considered a lost cause, and among those who do believe it can be saved, their arguments amount to a blinking confusion and insistence that it must. Given that people like me have only ever participated in the economy during a time when the middle class was shrinking, what are we to do? Most of us agree, if our future is a world of a few 'haves' and many 'have nots', priority one is to become a 'have'. Even from the most moral stance imaginable, a 'have not' has no ability to help others. Hence, too many of us try to get into the elite. To aim for the middle class is to aim for grinding poverty, and why would anyone?