You don’t give privileges to people who are already privileged.
What can be done about the relentless reactionary clamoring of a few regressive radicals charging for an ever-higher elevated position of privilege for themselves?
Their efforts must be stamped out everywhere they are seen and heard.
Marivaux wrote "Le Paysan Parvenu" ("The Upstart Peasant" or "The Self-Made Man") nearly 300 years ago. It's the story of an “everyman” who elevated his status in society with his own ingenuity and efforts. An unobstructed path for everyone to do the same is another one of the blessings of life. It was still a revolutionary idea 300 years ago and progressives still work to secure it and extend it to all. This is because of our nature and condition as human beings. We accept hierarchy. Somebody is always the boss. The question is “who?”
Marivaux’s hero secured privilege for himself as a reward for merit, not because of an entrenched caste system. The character who succeeds as a self-made man or woman is a powerful image still recognized today, by people everywhere who never heard of Marivaux. It’s also a useful image that gives cover to a greedy elite whose identity is defined by who wins, who rules, who benefits, and preservation of status.
The wealthy class uses its resources to persuade the rest of society that it deserves more privileges than others as a reward for its accomplishments. However, most of them have no real accomplishments of their own. The truth is that most wealth is inherited by a class of “the idle rich” who are raised and socialized in a world of their own that has little to do with the life of an ordinary American.
“Who Rules America? Wealth, Income, and Power” an ongoing study by Professor G. William Domhoff of UC Santa Cruz is an authoritative and comprehensive resource for those interested in this topic. It can be summed up in a single phrase I heard decades ago at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris.
You don’t give privileges to people who are already privileged.
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