“Humanity for the first time is burdened with a vast proletariat of literate, ambitious, and demanding people who can’t really do anything” – Aaron Haspel
The Oligarchy – the class that controls the scalable resources. The Internet Barons who serve the platforms where millions of people concentrate and aggregate content for a less than a slave wage. The Brand Barons who control the material desires, the globally outsourced production and distribution chains. The famous athletes or performers who entertain on a globally turbocharged scale. This Oligarchy in trun spins an entire ecosystem, including the Latinos to trim their bushes, the clergy and gurus to sell them the emotionally charged memorial plaques and the nurses to inject them with Botox and hope.
The Nouveau Riche – this is a new service class, for the moment protected from the ravages of the outsourcing. It includes the professionals that require a direct human contact or a geographic proximity. For example the healthcare professionals, the educators, the lawyers and the vast army of the economic pimps. A pimp is someone who owns a tradable information about a scarce resource. They are the pimping brokers who hook you up with a hot hedge fund, the book agents, the sports agents or the realtors who swap bricks and mortar with the nouveau Russians and the Sheiks. Also in this class are the new digital farmers to cultivate the server farms, grow the code and tend to the databases on behalf of the oligarchy.
The Nouveau Lumpenproletariat – the outsourced masses, formerly known as the middle class. This is the vast majority of the Americans who in the last decades succumbed to a three-pronged attack. They have been attacked by the organized labor that made their overpriced skills uncompetitive on the global market. They have been attacked by the relentless waves of the undocumented and unorganized immigrant labor. They have been attacked by the slave labor in the post communist Asia. Michael Lind called these Americans obsolete.
The Old Poor – the class that still rides the benefits of the New Deal and provides for the vast army of the clerks that distribute the rations. Unlike the old middle class the old poor have a voice and the advocates who give this voting block a political cover. Eventually when the dwindling tax revenues will trickle down, this class might join the Nouveau Lumpenproletariat’s Tea Party and turn it into a revolution.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Ben!
I agree that there seems to be a widening gap between the wealthy and the poor; also, the middle class seems to be shrinking in America. What are your thoughts on how to cure some of these ills?
Cheers!
Greg
Greg, I don’t have a plan. The system is so complex and full of conflicting signals that governance is impossible. But I like the simple Nassim Taleb’s proposal that can immediately bring about the structural change – “All Captains go Down the Ships”. As it stands right now there is virtually no consequence for the wrong decisions or wrong forecasting. CEOs remain at the helm even after they run companies into the ground, so are the political leaders and the pundits that are on the record with disastrous moves and advice. This has to change, this is the root of the disaster. You have the storm and the caste that is immune from the storm.
Where does the political class fit in? You know, the ladies who can jet off to Spain for a summer vacation with 40 of their closest friends.
Gianni, to see where political class fits you would have to examine how the political system is financed, it’s going to be a simple exercise… On the bright side the genius of the system is in the term limits, its not a life long appointment like the Spanish monarchy for example.
I’m interested to know which of these class divisions you are a part of, Mr. Atlas. I know I certainly belong to the nouveau lumpenproletariat, being of the many (now typical) angry unemployed recent college graduates. Although I don’t fit into the Marxist mold of what a lumpen should be, as my politics are not reactionary, but left-communist (or perhaps anarchist).
Ben, don’t you believe in the American Dream? Do you believe that someone can have a very fulfilling life with use of mobility, education and hard work?