5 ms·

The greatest trick the ruling classes in the US ever pulled was convincing everyone else, especially those who suffer the most from the current system, that the

The greatest trick the ruling classes in the US ever pulled was convincing everyone else, especially those who suffer the most from the current system, that they're not poor and they're not an underclass - they're temporarily embarrassed millionaires. When I was working in Italy I would sometimes listen to a US Forces radio station on my drive in each morning, and the success story propaganda was fascinating. Every so often, there would be a completely irrelevant and disconnected sixty second summary of some lucky chap who did really well in business, with an undertone that all you needed was to work hard and you'd become a millionaire.

snowwrestler 14y ago
No one becomes rich by not trying, and quietly accepting their lot in life. Not everyone who tries to get rich, will get rich. In fact, most won't. That is true. That doesn't mean that trying is foolish. Quite the contrary; it is the basis of free market capitalism. When everyone tries, our collective choices in the marketplace can select for the best ideas, most organized managers, most inspiring leaders. If no one tries, we're stuck with whoever is on top now, staying on top. That's not a recipe for improvement in a changing world.
gadders 14y ago
Well, lottery and inheritances excepted, you won't become one if you don't work hard.
- EliRivers 14y ago
  I disagree. If you have the right connections and someone willing to bankroll you, you can coast through school, get into a top university, and coast your way into a high-paying job that your connections arranged for you.
  - olalonde 14y ago
    Depending on how you look at it, this could be seen as a form of inheritance.
  - gadders 14y ago
    I think that is less common or easy these days than you would think. I don't know of people in the UK that can get into universities with significantly lower grades, just because of their family. And the part about jobs migt be true for a family firm, but I doubt if it would work at, say, IBM.
    - EliRivers 14y ago
      "I don't know of people in the UK " Yup, my fault, not clear enough. I'm talking about the US more than the UK, although now that UK universities have essentially been told by the government to behave like businesses, with poor people already less likely to apply than the rich since fees went from zero to almost ten grand a year in the course of a decade, I expect the UK to catch up soon enough in terms of buying your way into a good university (there is indeed already rumbling about places going to foreign students who can be charged far more than home students, establishing the principle, so I expect that as soon as universities work out a way to let people buy their way in, they will). ------------EDIT------------- Edit to answer this point below: ""Give up, no point working hard, you will never make anything of yourself, the game is rigged"?" No. My alternative narrative is "know the game is rigged". If you're playing a rigged game, your chances are so much better if you realise this (hence my very first post here - the people who rig the game work hard to make the unlucky ones think it isn't rigged).
      - gadders 14y ago
        So what would your alternative narrative be for people? "Give up, no point working hard, you will never make anything of yourself, the game is rigged"?
      - antihero 14y ago
        Thing is, one could say that "be aware that the game is rigged, try to understand it, play by your own rules, and adapt to the rigged game in order to survive". Thing is, that relies on so many factors that simply aren't the case for people - intelligence, upbringing, world-experience, contacts, race, gender, education. Basically, there's always a chance you can make it no matter how fucked you are, but that percentage is so low you may as well say fuck it and start selling drugs, because the chance of you making it legitimately is orders of magnitude lower than the chance you'll get caught "making it" illegally.
  - Millennium 14y ago
    Except that this isn't true, because no sane benefactor works THAT unconditionally: the moment you're found to be coasting is the moment you get dropped like a hot potato.
    - thirdtruck 14y ago
      The "sane" qualifier removes a lot of relevant benefactors from that analysis, unfortunately. Case in point: categorical prioritization of progeny, inherited wealth, or the impact of power and wealth acquisition on the functioning of an otherwise more productive mind.
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      In that social class (the elite) working 30 hours per week is a serious dedication and the "coasters" they punt are the three-martini lunch types who work less than 10 hours per week but still feel entitled to "make decisions". Those people will be fired-- or I should say, "asked to resign"-- but they get nice severance packages and the right to write their own references. That's how the country club mentality works. You protect "your own" no matter what. (ETA) Part of the reason we, as software engineers, don't have a lot of autonomy or respect is that we don't have the tribal mentality. Many engineers will gladly sell out their own colleagues to management in the hope of getting a promotion. So yes, you can continually get through on connections despite what we would call meager effort, at that social milieu. It won't make you CEO, but you can move fairly seamlessly from one high-prestige job to another.
      - aetherson 14y ago
        Are you suggesting that, like, i-bankers are a group known for its solidarity and generosity to their peers? That i-bankers wouldn't sell out their co-workers for a shot at promotion? Or that, like, junior lawyers at big law firms are these community-minded individuals who just pick up the slack so that their colleagues can coast? A lot of people from my college went on to be lawyers and i-bankers. My understanding of those jobs does not match your description. Like, even a little bit. There are undoubtedly people out there who are underqualified and coasting in cushy jobs that they got through their connections. But the finance and law jobs that super-elite universities feed into to a grossly disproportionate degree are -- at their junior levels, at least -- overwhelmingly not those jobs. They're high-paid, but they're both grind-houses and shark tanks. Their cultures are ones of shallow relationships, little loyalty, and burning out junior employees to support a pyramid structure of more comfortable senior people.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  Hard work is a (mostly) necessary but insufficient condition for becoming successful. The main problem here is that much of US society believes it is a necessary and sufficient condition - i.e., they've perverted "you need to work hard to get rich" to "if you work hard you will get rich", or the more pernicious format: "if you're not rich you didn't work hard". The last form of this thought is one of the most persistently toxic concepts of modern US society.
  - gadders 14y ago
    I think if you change it to "If you work hard you will get richER" I would say it holds true 99% of the time.
1337biz 14y ago
This "greatest trick" is in other news also called the "American Dream". It's all a matter of perspective.
- EliRivers 14y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is. Are you agreeing that the "American Dream" is now (to some extent, which may have been different in the past) part of the effort of convincing people that the game isn't rigged against them, or are you disagreeing with that?
  - shiftpgdn 14y ago
    It's called the "American Dream" because you have to be asleep to believe it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
  - 1337biz 14y ago
    I think that this almost indestructible believe that anything is possible is a central part of the US existence. Back then, when somebody wrote “all men are created equal”, this statement could be already seen as an insult to large parts of society. The reality is, if people have high hopes and dreams, they are most likely not going to achieve them. But I am absolutely certain that these give them a purpose to try harder and become better in whatever they do. Even so it is largely an illusion, it benefits society overall as it motivates people to live up to their best possible capabilities. But I don't believe that there is anything such as a fair game and that those not benefiting from the current rules of the game will always call it unfair. This is similar to the discussion in the article of the Ivy Schools. Is what they do fair? Absolutely not! Does it serve its purpose of positioning the schools as institutions that bring together the intellectual and societal elites? Yes it does.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- refurb 14y ago
  I guess it all depends on what your definition of the American Dream is. It's all relative. Definition 1 - In America, it doesn't matter who you are, you can be successful. You could run your own business or attain a high-level political office (to name a few). Definition 2 - In America, if you work hard, you will always attain a high level of success. You will never be treated unfairly or have to obstacles you need to overcome in order to succeed. I think if you ask most immigrants who came to the US from countries with authoritarian regimes, they'll agree the "American Dream" still exists. Of course their perspective is quite different. In their home country no matter how hard they worked they could never be successful because they were the wrong race, member of the wrong political party, didn't have connections to the right people, didn't go to the right schools, etc. I don't think any reasonable definition of the "American Dream" demands that America is perfect. It's just an observation that America is very unique in the world in the opportunities it offers people from all backgrounds. Heck, I've spoke to European friends who feel that the US offers more opportunities for everyone than their home country does.
jakeonthemove 14y ago
It's a better way of thinking than "I'm poor, I don't think I stand a chance". Even if people don't become rich or successful, they still feel better about themselves. The "work hard and you may become a millionaire" undertone is a good thing.
- smutticus 14y ago
  Is it still a good thing if it convinces the poor to not act in their self interest by not advocating for change? OR If we agree the american dream is fallacy then is the only purpose of it to keep the rich from being guillotined? I'm not sure what I think of the american dream or even what it means. But I find the idea of lying to the disenfranchised so they can feel better about themselves condescending.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    Socialism, or guillotines for that matter, do far less than the American dream to actually help the poor.
    - mcguire 14y ago
      Source?
  - 7952 14y ago
    Part of the problem is we continue to use words like rich and poor as if they have strictly defined meanings. We get polarisation instead of sensible steps to improve things for everyone.
- tonyedgecombe 14y ago
  I'm not sure about that, the trouble is if you flip it around you end up saying people are poor because of their own failings. Modern society looks down on poor people, labelling them as losers when they are really a product of unfortunate circumstances. Unfortunate because they had no books in their house, unfortunate because they were surrounded by family who derided learning, unfortunate because they had the wrong colour skin or wrong gender for the career they wanted. I'm not even sure I buy your argument that they feel better about themselves. Being constantly reminded of your supposed failings isn't a great place to be. The worst part of "work hard and you may become a millionaire" is for the majority it is a lie.
venus 14y ago
For a long time I have had this theory that the reason the poorer classes in the US seemed so paradoxically opposed to higher taxes, or just taxes at all, for the super-rich was because they secretly believed that, one day, they'd be super-rich and those taxes were going to be on them. It's indeed an excellent trick. Appeals nicely to people's greed and wishful thinking.
- geori 14y ago
  It's not a theory, it's a fact that people vote aspirationally.
  - zjelveh 14y ago
    It's also about race. White people think their tax dollars are going to non-whites. Hopefully that changes w/ the demographic shift
- LDale 14y ago
  I disagree - I believe that when these people make such statements as "I never got a job from a poor man" they actually understand, and accept, their low social position in relation to the wealthy. It is a product of an authoritarian mindset. They respect, or at least accept, the authority of the wealthy - to whom they serve in one way or another - while claiming privilege over those they perceive to be of lower status (say - public servants, minorities, foreigners, immigrants, sexual deviants, etc. and so-on). The wealthy or influential understand that many, if not most, men have a desire to be led - so they conveniently choose to lead these men in such a way that benefits their own status and wealth. A question of importance, then, is what happened to noblesse oblige...
iskander 14y ago
I think Steinbeck's original phrasing is better: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

snowwrestler 14y ago

No one becomes rich by not trying, and quietly accepting their lot in life. Not everyone who tries to get rich, will get rich. In fact, most won't. That is true. That doesn't mean that trying is foolish. Quite the contrary; it is the basis of free market capitalism. When everyone tries, our collective choices in the marketplace can select for the best ideas, most organized managers, most inspiring leaders. If no one tries, we're stuck with whoever is on top now, staying on top. That's not a recipe for improvement in a changing world.

gadders 14y ago

Well, lottery and inheritances excepted, you won't become one if you don't work hard.

EliRivers 14y ago
I disagree. If you have the right connections and someone willing to bankroll you, you can coast through school, get into a top university, and coast your way into a high-paying job that your connections arranged for you.
- olalonde 14y ago
  Depending on how you look at it, this could be seen as a form of inheritance.
- gadders 14y ago
  I think that is less common or easy these days than you would think. I don't know of people in the UK that can get into universities with significantly lower grades, just because of their family. And the part about jobs migt be true for a family firm, but I doubt if it would work at, say, IBM.
  - EliRivers 14y ago
    "I don't know of people in the UK " Yup, my fault, not clear enough. I'm talking about the US more than the UK, although now that UK universities have essentially been told by the government to behave like businesses, with poor people already less likely to apply than the rich since fees went from zero to almost ten grand a year in the course of a decade, I expect the UK to catch up soon enough in terms of buying your way into a good university (there is indeed already rumbling about places going to foreign students who can be charged far more than home students, establishing the principle, so I expect that as soon as universities work out a way to let people buy their way in, they will). ------------EDIT------------- Edit to answer this point below: ""Give up, no point working hard, you will never make anything of yourself, the game is rigged"?" No. My alternative narrative is "know the game is rigged". If you're playing a rigged game, your chances are so much better if you realise this (hence my very first post here - the people who rig the game work hard to make the unlucky ones think it isn't rigged).
    - gadders 14y ago
      So what would your alternative narrative be for people? "Give up, no point working hard, you will never make anything of yourself, the game is rigged"?
    - antihero 14y ago
      Thing is, one could say that "be aware that the game is rigged, try to understand it, play by your own rules, and adapt to the rigged game in order to survive". Thing is, that relies on so many factors that simply aren't the case for people - intelligence, upbringing, world-experience, contacts, race, gender, education. Basically, there's always a chance you can make it no matter how fucked you are, but that percentage is so low you may as well say fuck it and start selling drugs, because the chance of you making it legitimately is orders of magnitude lower than the chance you'll get caught "making it" illegally.
- Millennium 14y ago
  Except that this isn't true, because no sane benefactor works THAT unconditionally: the moment you're found to be coasting is the moment you get dropped like a hot potato.
  - thirdtruck 14y ago
    The "sane" qualifier removes a lot of relevant benefactors from that analysis, unfortunately. Case in point: categorical prioritization of progeny, inherited wealth, or the impact of power and wealth acquisition on the functioning of an otherwise more productive mind.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    In that social class (the elite) working 30 hours per week is a serious dedication and the "coasters" they punt are the three-martini lunch types who work less than 10 hours per week but still feel entitled to "make decisions". Those people will be fired-- or I should say, "asked to resign"-- but they get nice severance packages and the right to write their own references. That's how the country club mentality works. You protect "your own" no matter what. (ETA) Part of the reason we, as software engineers, don't have a lot of autonomy or respect is that we don't have the tribal mentality. Many engineers will gladly sell out their own colleagues to management in the hope of getting a promotion. So yes, you can continually get through on connections despite what we would call meager effort, at that social milieu. It won't make you CEO, but you can move fairly seamlessly from one high-prestige job to another.
    - aetherson 14y ago
      Are you suggesting that, like, i-bankers are a group known for its solidarity and generosity to their peers? That i-bankers wouldn't sell out their co-workers for a shot at promotion? Or that, like, junior lawyers at big law firms are these community-minded individuals who just pick up the slack so that their colleagues can coast? A lot of people from my college went on to be lawyers and i-bankers. My understanding of those jobs does not match your description. Like, even a little bit. There are undoubtedly people out there who are underqualified and coasting in cushy jobs that they got through their connections. But the finance and law jobs that super-elite universities feed into to a grossly disproportionate degree are -- at their junior levels, at least -- overwhelmingly not those jobs. They're high-paid, but they're both grind-houses and shark tanks. Their cultures are ones of shallow relationships, little loyalty, and burning out junior employees to support a pyramid structure of more comfortable senior people.
potatolicious 14y ago
Hard work is a (mostly) necessary but insufficient condition for becoming successful. The main problem here is that much of US society believes it is a necessary and sufficient condition - i.e., they've perverted "you need to work hard to get rich" to "if you work hard you will get rich", or the more pernicious format: "if you're not rich you didn't work hard". The last form of this thought is one of the most persistently toxic concepts of modern US society.
- gadders 14y ago
  I think if you change it to "If you work hard you will get richER" I would say it holds true 99% of the time.

1337biz 14y ago

This "greatest trick" is in other news also called the "American Dream". It's all a matter of perspective.

EliRivers 14y ago
I'm not sure what your point is. Are you agreeing that the "American Dream" is now (to some extent, which may have been different in the past) part of the effort of convincing people that the game isn't rigged against them, or are you disagreeing with that?
- shiftpgdn 14y ago
  It's called the "American Dream" because you have to be asleep to believe it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
- 1337biz 14y ago
  I think that this almost indestructible believe that anything is possible is a central part of the US existence. Back then, when somebody wrote “all men are created equal”, this statement could be already seen as an insult to large parts of society. The reality is, if people have high hopes and dreams, they are most likely not going to achieve them. But I am absolutely certain that these give them a purpose to try harder and become better in whatever they do. Even so it is largely an illusion, it benefits society overall as it motivates people to live up to their best possible capabilities. But I don't believe that there is anything such as a fair game and that those not benefiting from the current rules of the game will always call it unfair. This is similar to the discussion in the article of the Ivy Schools. Is what they do fair? Absolutely not! Does it serve its purpose of positioning the schools as institutions that bring together the intellectual and societal elites? Yes it does.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
refurb 14y ago
I guess it all depends on what your definition of the American Dream is. It's all relative. Definition 1 - In America, it doesn't matter who you are, you can be successful. You could run your own business or attain a high-level political office (to name a few). Definition 2 - In America, if you work hard, you will always attain a high level of success. You will never be treated unfairly or have to obstacles you need to overcome in order to succeed. I think if you ask most immigrants who came to the US from countries with authoritarian regimes, they'll agree the "American Dream" still exists. Of course their perspective is quite different. In their home country no matter how hard they worked they could never be successful because they were the wrong race, member of the wrong political party, didn't have connections to the right people, didn't go to the right schools, etc. I don't think any reasonable definition of the "American Dream" demands that America is perfect. It's just an observation that America is very unique in the world in the opportunities it offers people from all backgrounds. Heck, I've spoke to European friends who feel that the US offers more opportunities for everyone than their home country does.

jakeonthemove 14y ago

It's a better way of thinking than "I'm poor, I don't think I stand a chance". Even if people don't become rich or successful, they still feel better about themselves. The "work hard and you may become a millionaire" undertone is a good thing.

smutticus 14y ago
Is it still a good thing if it convinces the poor to not act in their self interest by not advocating for change? OR If we agree the american dream is fallacy then is the only purpose of it to keep the rich from being guillotined? I'm not sure what I think of the american dream or even what it means. But I find the idea of lying to the disenfranchised so they can feel better about themselves condescending.
- philwelch 14y ago
  Socialism, or guillotines for that matter, do far less than the American dream to actually help the poor.
  - mcguire 14y ago
    Source?
- 7952 14y ago
  Part of the problem is we continue to use words like rich and poor as if they have strictly defined meanings. We get polarisation instead of sensible steps to improve things for everyone.
tonyedgecombe 14y ago
I'm not sure about that, the trouble is if you flip it around you end up saying people are poor because of their own failings. Modern society looks down on poor people, labelling them as losers when they are really a product of unfortunate circumstances. Unfortunate because they had no books in their house, unfortunate because they were surrounded by family who derided learning, unfortunate because they had the wrong colour skin or wrong gender for the career they wanted. I'm not even sure I buy your argument that they feel better about themselves. Being constantly reminded of your supposed failings isn't a great place to be. The worst part of "work hard and you may become a millionaire" is for the majority it is a lie.

venus 14y ago

For a long time I have had this theory that the reason the poorer classes in the US seemed so paradoxically opposed to higher taxes, or just taxes at all, for the super-rich was because they secretly believed that, one day, they'd be super-rich and those taxes were going to be on them. It's indeed an excellent trick. Appeals nicely to people's greed and wishful thinking.

geori 14y ago
It's not a theory, it's a fact that people vote aspirationally.
- zjelveh 14y ago
  It's also about race. White people think their tax dollars are going to non-whites. Hopefully that changes w/ the demographic shift
LDale 14y ago
I disagree - I believe that when these people make such statements as "I never got a job from a poor man" they actually understand, and accept, their low social position in relation to the wealthy. It is a product of an authoritarian mindset. They respect, or at least accept, the authority of the wealthy - to whom they serve in one way or another - while claiming privilege over those they perceive to be of lower status (say - public servants, minorities, foreigners, immigrants, sexual deviants, etc. and so-on). The wealthy or influential understand that many, if not most, men have a desire to be led - so they conveniently choose to lead these men in such a way that benefits their own status and wealth. A question of importance, then, is what happened to noblesse oblige...

iskander 14y ago

I think Steinbeck's original phrasing is better: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."