The Reproduction of Privilege
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/the-reproduction-of-privilege/
Vertical mobility (the ability to be born to poor parents yet go on to be middle class, for instance) in the US has been steadily eroding for well over a generation. While there are certainly societal reasons why this has happened, there are much larger reasons why I believe this has been done (perhaps not intentionally, though it becomes easier to believe in conspiracies as one does deeper research) by our winner-take-all, zero sum government/economy run by the oligarchy. One of the keys to vertical mobility is the mobility is its bi-directionality. While I am sure that the rich are probably not wild about the idea of the middle class or poor joining their ranks (don’t want to share their exclusive access, doanchano), I am positive they are acutely allergic to the idea of them joining the middle class (or heavens forbid, the poor!). So I am quite certain that the rich actively (likely without any need for any conspiratorial cooperation, just out of enlightened self interest) work to suppress any chance of their negative mobility which has, as a side effect, suppressing the upward mobility of the poor and middle class. Their goal is the rich stay rich and the rest can go to hell.
How to combat this? Well, as long as the oligarchy is in control of our government and economy, I don’t think there is any solution. People don’t like to run the risk of sliding down the economic scale (even the poor have homelessness to dread) but that mobility must be a part of any society that allows people to move up. While it isn’t possible for everyone to be rich, it is possible for the poorest of us to live a much more comfortable life where they don’t have to worry about where each meal will come from, what will happen if they get sick or injured and how they will survive when the can no longer work. To build such a society, though, almost certainly means that the peaks of the wealthy will have to come down, not something they are likely to accept without a substantial battle, one they are particularly well equipped to handle.
