SUPER-WEALTHY
CLASS
“Economic stratification, and the rise of a super-wealthy class,
threatens our democracy. Americans are growing increasingly separated from one
another along lines of class, in every aspect of life: where they're born and grow
up, where they go to school, what they eat, how they travel, whom they marry,
what their children do, how long they live, how they die. What kind of
‘national community’ built on ‘mutual obligation’ is possible when Americans
have so little shared experience? The Princeton economist Alan Krueger has
demonstrated that societies with higher levels of income inequality are societies
with lower levels of social mobility. As America has grown less economically
equal, a citizen's ability to move upward has fallen behind that of citizens in other
Western democracies. We are no longer the country where anyone can be-
come anything.”
threatens our democracy. Americans are growing increasingly separated from one
another along lines of class, in every aspect of life: where they're born and grow
up, where they go to school, what they eat, how they travel, whom they marry,
what their children do, how long they live, how they die. What kind of
‘national community’ built on ‘mutual obligation’ is possible when Americans
have so little shared experience? The Princeton economist Alan Krueger has
demonstrated that societies with higher levels of income inequality are societies
with lower levels of social mobility. As America has grown less economically
equal, a citizen's ability to move upward has fallen behind that of citizens in other
Western democracies. We are no longer the country where anyone can be-
come anything.”
Packer, George, “The Republican Class War,” pp: 26-34, The
New Yorker, November 9, 2015.
