Classifying America

IN AMERICAN GRADE SCHOOLS we have traditionally been taught that America is a class free society in which everyone is equal. This of course has never been the case, isn't the case now, and most likely never will be. In American public schools, pro-American history spin, or "hagiography" rather than factual history has been the tradition, from which we only recently have begun to vary. History teachers who teach painful truths, such as America's massive inequality, thomas Jefferson's un-Christian religious view, the needless nuclear bombing of Japan in World War Two, systemic racism in America, and so forth, have traditionally put their jobs at risk. America was founded as a class based culture, and remains one today. During the middle of the twentieth century the American middle class was extremely inclusive, and class distinctions in America ware less extreme than ever, but that state of affairs has rapidly devolved back into a highly segregated, class based society, as described by Richard Reeves in an excellent new monograph "Dream Hoarder's". We have become accustomed to referring to the "One percent" and the "ninety nine percent", but Reeves talks about the upper twenty percent, upper middle class America and beyond, as constituting the true upper class, disproportionately occupying positions of power, and possessing and keeping for themselves a disproportionate amount of the opportunities for advancement. Like nearly all economists, Reeves is convinced that the current high concentration of wealth in the country is detrimental to America's overall health, and must be to some extent reversed. He sets out to prove how economic inequality is harmful to everyone in the long run, and offers solutions to it. He includes the usual suspects, such as increased pay for unskilled and low skill workers, and a more progressive taxation system. Although most of us do not seem inclined to listen to people like reeves at the moment, that may soon change, by necessity.