[kelseyfrog]

America has been in a class war since the beginning. It just refuses to call it that.

Yet each time it plays out on the battlefield of truth: who gets to decide what's real? Each era has its own aristocracy - who produces knowledge, and clergy disseminating knowledge and legitimizing who gets to produce it.

Phase One: 1770s

The fight was colonial gentry vs. hereditary nobility. Knowledge still lived with the elite, but it was anti-hereditary elite. Thomas Paine writes Common Sense. Not just your uncle's holiday rant, but part of Scottish Realism. "Self-evident" meant truths visible to anyone, no credentials required.

Phase Two: 1820s–1830s

Jacksonian democracy recasts the conflict: common man vs. entrenched elites in law, banking, and bureaucracy. Aristocracy = lawyers, bankers, judges. Clergy = newspapers and journalists. Populist epistemology: trust your own judgment; they're out of touch.

Phase Three: Mid-20th Century

Cold War era crowns scientists, engineers, policy wonks as aristocracy. Broadcasting elites as clergy legitimize the scientific consensus. Main Street is now the beacon of folk wisdom.

Phase Four: 2000s

Old media's monopoly dies. The internet gives Main Street a megaphone as loud as any newsroom. The Reformation comes again. Swap religion for epistemology, the printing press for the internet. When the epistemic monopoly falls, chaos follows until a new regime of knowledge stabilizes.

Let's face it, putting the genie back in the bottle isn't an option. Either we reconstitute the aristocracy under a new, still-undefined regime, or we solve the class problem so there's no aristocracy left to legitimize. Pick one. Then ask yourself what that choice means for what happens next.

[bigbadfeline]

Too many unfounded assumptions

> Let's face it, putting the genie back in the bottle isn't an option.

The genie might be where it's always been, just a few new smokes and mirrors added for laughs and giggles.

> Either we reconstitute the aristocracy under a new, still-undefined regime or we solve the class problem so there's no aristocracy left to legitimize.

"We" being like who? And "aristocracy" is who?

You lost me at Phase 3 because scientists, engineers, policy wonks don't fit any definition of aristocracy. Phase 4 didn't offer new candidates for coronation, so what gives? Are you fomenting a revolution against said scientists, engineers and policy wonks? That's curious to put it mildly.

[carlosjobim]

> solve the class problem

But is it solvable? What if the desire to have somebody else to blame is stronger than any desire for freedom and equality? You want freedom, I want freedom, but does the average man want freedom if it is truly offered him?

[jrussino]

> Cold War era crowns scientists, engineers, policy wonks as aristocracy. Broadcasting elites as clergy legitimize the scientific consensus.

> Aristocracy (from Ancient Greek ἀριστοκρατίᾱ (aristokratíā) 'rule of the best'; from ἄριστος (áristos) 'best' and κράτος (krátos) 'power, strength') is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. [1]

It seems plain to me that in no sense have "scientists, engineers, policy wonks" been the "privileged ruling class" in the USA.

Senators and presidents and the executives and board members of multinational corporations and other large institutions are the "elite ruling class" you're looking for, and they're not scientists and engineers and academics...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocracy

[msgodel]

All societies have elites, you can't eliminate that. What you want are societies where the elite's interests and the people's interests are aligned.

EDIT: meh. At least aristocracies typically had a connection with the people and tended to not openly attack them or their culture.

[kelseyfrog]

So you have chosen aristocracy. The average inter-aristocracy interval is 417 years +/- 196. See you again in approximately the mid 25th century give or take a few.

[thrance]

Classes are defined by their differing and opposing interests. By definition then, there can be no alignment between them. Capital owners want more labor for less capital, workers want more capital for less labor.

[wilg]

Doesn't sound like a very useful definition!

[thrance]

Why? It explains a lot about society and it holds perfectly. That's the definition of a good definition. What's your definition of economic classes?

There is an internal contradiction within our capitalist systems, some people live by selling their labors for wages, and some by leasing their capital for labor (to get more capital). Evidently those two interests are opposed, and ergo leads to issues when one side gains two much power over the other, because the power imbalance is very much not self-correcting.

Classes are used to refer to these groups of opposing intersts. There would be no need for classes if there was no conflict. Things only exist in their opposition to other things.