[ipnon]

The idea of privilege first entered the public sphere in the prelude to the French Revolution. "Privilege" in Old French literally means "private law".[1] It was the idea that a different set of rules for each of the Estates (Clergy, Nobles, and Commoners) was both fair and natural.

Are we are starting to see similarly different sets of rules for each class in the United States? Is such privilege in accordance with our ideals of liberty and justice for all?

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/privilege

[chaostheory]

Corruption never disappears completely, but it's pervasiveness seems to be cyclical. The 4th Turning is a good read on the subject

https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Turning-American-Prophecy-Rend...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...

[youeseh]

Social classes and economic classes, while they have a lot of overlap, are fundamentally different.

[suprfsat]

Can it be? Are the rich starting to follow a different set of rules?

[nicoburns]

Starting? When has this not been the case?

[ipnon]

Before the 18th century most people could not read. Literacy rates began rising dramatically starting in the 17th century with the invention of the printing press and the proliferation of reading materials that it spawned. By the third quarter of the 18th century, an extraordinary milestone was passed in France. For the first time in history more people could read than could not. The commoners of Paris were obsessed with the plays, novels and essays of Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. The satire and wit of these thinkers inspired a new form of popular discourse we now call critical thinking. Commoners from rich merchants to petty artisans started examining and discovering the contradictions and injustices endemic to their lot in life. The idea of privilege came from this tempest of new ideas. While the hierarchy of power and its unequal treatment are as old as time, this newly educated population was for the first time able to see this hierarchy of power for what it is: an inherited system of control based on fraudulent claims to divinity that is inherently unfair and unjust.

[TheAdamAndChe]

It's always been there, it's just that social media is making it extremely easy for everyone to see it now.