“socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
Noah Smith • America doesn't really have a working class
Jake Domagalski added
Harshith Iyer added
I also suspect that Americans feel that their society is a highly mobile one. John Steinbeck is often (mis)quoted as saying that “socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” But the flip side of this is that a lot of rich Americans see themselves ... See more
Noah Smith • America doesn't really have a working class
Andrei Stoica added
For ages the rich and their sycophants have written in praise of “honest toil,” have praised the simple life, have professed a religion which teaches that the poor are much more likely to go to heaven than the rich, and in general have tried to make manual workers believe that there is some special nobility about altering the position of matter in ... See more
harpers.org • In Praise of Idleness
the ideal of a society governed in the economic and political sphere by co-operation between the workers now inspires scarcely a single mass movement,
Simone Weil • Oppression and Liberty
juarry added
Young people understand that they have to labor for their livelihoods, but many, like Phillips and Dakota, believe the existing system has set them up to fail. Bleak economic circumstances --- exacerbated by crushing student loan debt, growing wealth inequality, and wage stagnation --- have soured their perceptions of capitalism. As a result, ... See more
Vox • Gen Z does not dream of labor
Keely Adler added
“Private capital tends to become concentrated in [a] few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones,” Albert Einstein wrote in 1949 in the Monthly Review in expla
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