There is a lot of discussion of late and use of the expression "class warfare." And though

it has never been openly said, it begins to more and more look like that
money defines who belongs to the upper classes, and who to the lower.

What about one's personal behavior? How about the people who lie, cheat,
corrupt, steal (directly or indirectly), are selfish, mean and cruel to
others without the least bit of regret? Aren't these the qualities
associated with the low-life forms? They definitely are not qualities
associated with "gentlemanly" behavior. These are the qualities of low
crooks.

What do you think?

more clearly and closely. What role does personal behavior in the
estimation of the quality of an individual? If it plays little or
no role, and money alone is all that counts, I think we're sunk
as a nation. Wouldn't our values be shallow and all out of whack.

nothing to do with class.

why would you think it would?

If someone has done something noble - big or small - for someone else,
and some self-sacrifice is involved, wouldn't it be common usage in the
English language to describe such a person as a "classy" guy? I think
so. And this has nothing to do with being rich or not, but it has
everything to do with personal behavior.

Of course, one word can have more than one meaning. Take the word
"spring." It could mean a body of water, a season of the year, a steel
coil, or to jump. And the meaning can only be known through the context
in which the word is used.

economically and socially.

should not pay more, one of the answers would be that they should not be punished for being successful, because they worked hard for that money. Not knowing if they did or did not really earn it.
Success to them is how much money they have.
I advocated to my republican rep that I would like to see a 70% top marginal tax rate, maybe on monies between 40 and 50 million
I was asked if I made that much and the tax rate was 70% would I consider leaving the country. I told them that anyone that thought that way did not care about this country and did not deserve to be an American. This is the way these people think. Money today determines a person's worth. Not what they have inside of them. That is sad and shallow.

paying 15%, and that a school teacher earning 50 thousand was
paying a higher percentage. So it's not about asking the rich
to pay more. It's about asking them to pay at the same rate
that the middle-class are doing. Right now the rich are paying
at a LOWER rate.

Interest income is taxed at 15% in order to encourage investment. That's actually a good thing because who is going to risk money investing in an established company during a recession or a start up if a huge chunk of the "profit" goes to the government. If the millionaire has any earned income, he or she is taxed at the appropriate rate for the earned income and taxed at the cap gain rate for the investment income. Using Buffett as an example, if he pays himself more than his secretary, he's paying a higher tax percentage on earned income than she is. If she earns more, he's paying himself less in order to deliberately avoid paying more in taxes. There's a big difference between earned income and investment income and I'm afraid the latest hype over Investors vs School Teachers just confuses the issue.

the means of production. Specifically, if you sustain yourself through selling your labor to the highest bidder (assuming one can be found), you are 'working class'. The top 1% in this country are part of what has been called the 'rentier' class (or ruling class), in that they sustain themselves not through the sweat of their brow but through receipt of 'rents' for their ownership of the means of production.

You are confusing and conflating two entirely different conceptions of 'class': the economic one detailed above vs. a behavioral model (as in the statement "Lindsey Lohan has no class").

Our values are all shallow and out of whack not because of class warfare but because of Philistinism.

:) ESPECIALLY that last sentence!

SERIOUSLY

The GOP knows how to campaign on class warfare, Democrats not so much

wouldn't do for any amount of money. Certainly they don't
worship it like a god.

scream it from their propaganda station, and then, CNN and the conservatives on MSNBC pick it up.

Except the rank and file Dem voters. We've been screaming it since Reagan and actually since long before... nobody has been listening least of all the Dem party since Reagan.

unpleasantly surprised at how obsessed Americans were with money.

And since then we've just gotten worse.

Here, "gentleman" just means "male," not a person of good manners and considerate nature and refined amusements.

There's a pole-dancer dive a mile from here that advertises itself as "A gentlemen's club."

OTOH, I doubt that true "gentlemen" would last long in American politics.

But yes, "high-class" has become synonymous with "wealthy," whereas the two are seldom found in the same person. Donald Trump no doubt considers himself high-class.

1831???? And it was that obvious THEN? Yikes.

We equate worth with money, and that's not it at all, is it? :(

Couldn't find anything in this group of quotes about Americans and their wealth-as-worth philosophy, but did find this:

=============================================
“I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
=============================================
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/465.Alexis_de_Tocqueville

Prescient, wasn't he.

(sometime between 1805 and 1859)

"As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?" ~ Alexis de Tocqueville

"In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville

"The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville

"The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville

Much more good stuff here --
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/alexis_de_tocqueville_2.html

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
Alexis de Tocqueville

Aren't we at this point now? And the percentage of American people who believe Congress is doing
a good job is in the low teens. We, as a nation, as well as the rest of the world, are at a
critical stage. That de Tocqueville did have a brilliant mind with its sharp observations.

Many thanks again for the quotes.

it was a short book) he wrote after an extensive tour of the United States, and can't remember the name of it (and am too lazy at the moment to look it up).

I do remember him concluding that Americans in general knew "the price of everything and the value of nothing," as Oscar Wilde said.

before, but I didn't know who had said it. Some Americans certainly understand values,
but not those who are now holding the reins of power in their hands. Of course, this
also appplies to much of the world today. Our world is in a state of crisis right now,
with too many psychopaths holding contrtol, or fighting to do so.

a friend "But I'm high-class, so . . . ." whatever.

I wanted to stand in front of him and say "Anyone with any class at all wouldn't be caught dead saying such a thing."

He had money. That made him "high-class" in his own mind, at least.

to belong, and perhaps deep down he knew that he didn't.

if you've got something there. I wonder if this could be
a part of Obama's proble m. Also, words can change in
meaning over time.

it was first coined by Marx and Engels.. so I will let you savor the irony (and cooping of frames) there

Class is defined by ones relation to the means of production. If you own and control the means of production you are bourgeois or a capitalist. If you sell your labor to survive, you are working class. Granted, there are inequalities in the working class for instance a nurse makes more than a clerk at Wal-Mart, but they are both working class because they must sell their labor to survive.

how you get your living -- investment or labor, owners or owned.

is what the corporatists and right-wingers in general are trying to re-bring
about -- wage slavery. These are the greedy, ambitious and aggressive people whose
only desires are power and profit, even if it means forcing others into poverty,
misery and death.

Our basis of life is material, it is the material means which define our ability to survive and thrive or not, our ability to dominate or our fate to submit. Wealth comes from command of the means of production in capitalist society. 'Niceness' got nothing to do with it. There are essentially two classes in capitalist society, capitalists and workers(there are gradations) and they are always at war, hot or cold.

Nice try at redefining what has been established for 150 years.

It is no longer necessary to live like creatures in the jungle, where you either kill
or are killed. Today the world has more than enough to provide every man, woman and child
with the basic necessities of life.

There is no reason for the existing poverty, hunger and starvation, were it not for the
greed and the sick need of a relatively few to grab and have far and way more than they
can possibly use.

The present crisis is a man-made one -- made by the ambitious psychopaths in positions
of power, who aggressively pursue their greedy goals, regardless of the misery and death
they create in their wake. This crisis need not to have existed at all. They and
their insatiable hunger for more have created it all.

The poor behavior which you deplore is an outcome, not the source of our misery.

in government and in private industry. Yes, it is their sick behavior which
is causing most of the poverty and misery in the world -- all for their own
personal profit.

And who elected the politicians to power? We may have been fooled, but, like
it or not, the majority of us elected them. Sometimes election-rigging may
have played a role, of course.

And how did so many sickos get into high positions in private industry?
They're intellent, of course, but some of them also chose to fight their way
up through any means, both fair and fowl -- empathy and compassion for their
fellow human beings not being part of their character at all.

Communism was a totally rotten system, and it died in its mother-country after
some 70 years. In North Korea, it is continuing unabated in its original
form, but North Korea is a small nation, and the country is ailing. A modified
form of Communism (partially capitalistic) continues to exist in China, and
China seems to be doing quite well.

Capitalism came into being some 300 years ago, and is still going strong. But
it has its problems, too. Right now, too many psychopaths are in positions of
power, and trying to grab everything for themselves, as stated above. This,
I believe, is the main problem. Capitalism would be a good system, if those in
power leave personal greed out of it.

I think poor behavior is in the personality of psychopaths. It is part of the
definition of a psychopath. The more of them we have in top positions in our
country, the worse it becomes for us the people.

Let's hope fewer of them will be elected in the future.

Enjoy your capitalism, if you can.

sure we all will do well with capitalism. The nation did well with FDR and his
followers, don't you remember? We get into trouble when the greedy and selfish
people take over. And right now they are exercising awesome power.

If some other system can be found in the future where the welfare of everyone
is guaranteed, regardless of who is in power, I'll be all for it. But such a
system is hard to find. Human beings are not perfect.

Do you think we got a real democracy around here or something? Money dictates who runs and who gets the support to win. And who has all the money? This is nothing new but it has become wide open in recent decades. Do you think they will ever give up $ = free speech now that they've got it enshrined by the Supremes? Nothing short of a revolution will do that.

The expedients of FDR were just that 'expedients' to save capitalism. And today we can see how appreciative the capitalist were about that, tearing down the New Deal to it's foundations.

Next time no half measures. We will have socialism and then communism, it is that or the barbarism which capitalism even now closely approaches.

as soon as it was enacted. It just took them a few decades to do it.

The state controls necessary to the war effort masked the trend, politicians kept telling people what they wanted to hear while voting otherwise(so new?).

To me the fact that the Democratic Party failed to ever mount a counter-offensive against Taft-Hartley tells the story. That vile piece of legislation along with the Red Scare brought the union movement to a screeching halt and nothing, nothing, could please the capitalists more.

That 'working-class' was effectively disappeared from the public lexicon is testimony to the success of their effort. Now the hard fought efforts of the past must be learned all over again.

that this time we can't do half measures. THE SYSTEM ITSELF NEEDS TO BE SMASHED. Otherwise, it will be the same in another 50 or 60 years as it was then or as it is now. Capitalism itself is the problem. It WILL NOT stay "regulated" or "controlled".

End it.

It "worked" for something in the neighborhood of twenty years out of hundreds and then only in an era of no competition for America, global ideological opposition, and low hanging fruit resource wise.

I find that most folks want a market for most consumer products and services. It should be understood that pre-dates, will survive, and exists absent capitalism. That and people for whatever bizarre reason that only capitalism allows for private property.

You design your system around it

breaks them. If someone steps out of a second-floor window, gravity
will take over and cause the fall. If a bridge is poorly made or
left too long without maintenace, it will collapse. If there are
enough people grabbing too much for themselves, there will be others
who will have to go hungry. Simple reasoning. Simple math. For a
human project to succeed, everyone has to cooperate. It doesn't take
too many non-cooperators for a project to fail.

As you say, simple reasoning

Let me say beforehand that threat of severe punishment for slight offenses would never work,
and should never be incorporated into such a system. An example:

In the 1700s, the penalty for stealing 2 shillings or more in England was death. 2 shillings =
one-tenth of a pound. Taking inflation into account, 2 shillings might be roughly equal to
$50 today. Not that much, considering that one's life was at stake. Many of the British laws
at that time were enacted to protect the property of the rich. So, who would dare to steal
except some poor wretch driven to desperation by something, such as hunger?

Even that drastic law was ineffective. Once someone is known to have stolen, he'd hide. And
some of them became highwaymen, big-time robbers. They were going to be hanged anyway when
caught, so might as well get some money and enjoy themselves while they still could. England's gallows were working overtime.

The further back we go in time, the more unfairness and cruelty reiged supreme. And some of the
right-wingers are doing their best to return to those times. The only excuse I can think up
for them is that they don't really know what they are doing.

T

Socialism, which will beget communism.

Tried and failed you say? Consider, capitalism had it's origin in the medieval towns, sometimes it advanced, sometimes it regressed. It took 500 -600 years for it to supersede the prevalent feudal system. Socialism has only been with us as an idea for about 200 years, as a reality for half that. There is trial and error, we learn from our mistakes. Be assured, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Communist nation, although the word was used to deceive the people.
Communism never went past the in-theory-only stage, as described by
Karl Marx. Stalin turned Russia into a Bolshevist state, but
called it Communism. And Hitler, like Mussolini, turned Capitalism
into Fascism, when they merged government with business corporations.

Hitler and Stalin hated one another with a passion, yet they were so
much alike. Both ruled their nations with coercion and brutal force.
Both were psychopathic dictators (among other things).

It seems to me that whatever system man devises, even with the best
intentions in mind, some day someone will come along (most likely
a psychopath) and change it -- for the worse. This can be applied to
systems of any kind, including religious ones. Whatever good an
original founder may have done, someone will come along in the future
and cause it to degenerate. Of course, future sincere and dedicated
people will also come along and improve things again. Ups are followed
by downs, then up again, etc. This has been the case so far in almost
all of human history.

I'm coming to the idea that, in order to have some peace of mind,
I'll try not to worry about whether things succeed or not. Just try to
be satisfied after having done my best. (I must say that I don't
always do my best). Worrying doesn't do a thing to make our lives
any more pleasant.

Some people believe having a lot of money will solve all problems and those who have it live better lives and are happier.

In reality, there is no correlation between how much money a person does or does not have and whether or not they are liars, cheaters...plenty of CEOs are sociopaths.

There is a huge push to maintain the misconception; we are now being bombarded by 'feel good' commercials from energy cos trying to make us believe their motives are nothing but good, and that their business (like natural gas fracking) has no negative consequences.

Money, throughout history, has always defined who has the power and control. The US was an experiment in giving some of that power to the common people and if we can't change our current course, the experiment will fail.

Thank you. Very important point and one that the OP is trying to skew for some unknown reason.

of its own. It doesn't. Money is an inanimate object, a dead thing. It can't do anything
of its own volition. It's what some people would do to lay their hands on it, and how they
would behave once they've got it, that really counts.

If you've paid more attention to the sentence following your quote from Avalux of msg. 26,
"The US was an experiment in giving some of that power to the common people and if we can't
change our current course, the experiment will fail." you'll notice that he, too, thinks it's
what PEOPLE DO WITH THE MONEY that counts. Money, like any inanimate object, can do nothing
of itself.

Get the right people into positions of power. As things are right now, the wrong people
are seeing to it that the wrong people are getting the positions of power.

Oh, yes, that will work Mr. Capitalist... we've seen such hope and change.

:eyes:

It is the system that has to go, mate.

whatever the system, there will be human beings working in them. And between
2 and 4% of human beings have anti-social personalities (are psychopaths).

These are the ones who are responsible for most of the crimes and wars since
the beginning of history. These are also exactly the ones who are aggressively
ambitious and without a conscience. They work hard to get to the top, where
the money and power are, and once there, they begin to do things to suit their
own purposes -- i.e. get more money and more personal power. It doesn't
bother them in the least how they get the money and power, as long as they get
them. And sooner or later, the whole rigmarole of lies, cheating, corruption
etc. will start all over again.

I've read that mental health experts believe that both heredity and environmental
upbringing play a role in the formation of anti-social personalities. Maybe
some time in the future, science can bring genetic manipulation to the point
where such genes in a fetus could be replaced with normal healthy genes. That
plus advising young parents how to bring up children may bring better days, where
there will be no more psychopaths amongst us. It will probably be quite a long wait
for this to happen. In the meantime, we'll have to deal with psychopaths. There
doesn't seem to be any choice in the matter.

It would be very helpful to have fewer of them elected to high government office, and
also fewer of them as high corporate executives.

the psychopaths like the current system does?

But they sometimes don't do it. Bush & Co. should have been
prosecuted for having broken the laws of the Constitution, but
they were not. Nancy Pelosi announced that it was "off the
table" practically from the first day she assumed the office
of Speaker of the House, in January, 2007.

I imagine that from that the right-wingers assumed that they
were given a free hand to do as they pleased -- and they did.

There were all kinds of speculations as to why Nancy did as
she had done. But nothing further has been done since.

Yes, it does look like that right-wingers were and are still
being rewarded for their wrongful deeds -- and by the Dems.

Elected office determines who has power and control. Of course "public service" generally leads to politicians using their office to line their pockets in some way or another so it goes right back to money and power.

although the rich will do everything they can to deflect that by talking about so-called "values", "qualities" etc... It is all about the money - it always has been.

longer wealthy, but most of them still are, although less so than in days gone by.
Today their influence upon society is insignificant.

I've also read that Hitler was doing what he could to be accepted by the German
and Austrian nobility, but they never did. Why would he want to be accepted by
them, when he had all the money and power? He could have had anyone of them
executed at will, if he had so chosen. He was the dictator, and they were under
his thumb, just like every other German citizen.

Yet, there was that certain "something" Hitler felt that the nobility had, which
he did not. This was Hitler's own personal thing. He wanted to be one of them,
but they did not accept him -- even when he had more money and power than they did.

The nobility, of course, are mostly wealthy. Outside of what wealth can provide
materially for a person, they were just people, like anyone else. There are the
intelligent ones as well as the mentally retarded, the great ones as well as the
sickest. The word "sadist" was derived from the name of "Marquis de Sade," a
French nobleman. And "masochist" from the Baron of Masoch, an Austrian, I
believe -- both of them sexual deviates.

You may feel money is everything. It's your privilege. Would you like to have
someone like Dick Cheney for a personal friend? I wouldn't. I'd prefer some
decent sort with integrity -- whether s/he has money or not is totally irrelevant.

I said it defines class. You're trying very hard to skew this into something it isn't - why is that? Why does discussing class scare people? Yes, the top 1% owns everything - you can talk about integrity all you want but they have the money and therefore control over everyone else. Why do we allow that to happen? There are many more of us than them.

but now, they are so perfectly groomed, so perfectly dressed, and they affect such loving and affable behavior that it is not possible to understand that they cheat, lie, steal, kill, just through their behavior when they greet you, or their tone of voice.

charmingly to another person, whom they are planning
to steal from, ruin or rip off.

charmingly to another person, whom they are planning
to steal from, ruin or rip off.

charmingly to another person, whom they are planning
to steal from, ruin or rip off. They can turn on their
charm any time they choose. If you study them for a
longer period of time, you will note that it's all
a superficial gimmick.

and the difference in meaning can become known through the context in
which it is used. Someone having done a noble deed for someone else,
and at personl sacrifice, would often be descrbed as a "classy" guy.
It has nothing to do with being rich or not, but does have to do with
personal behavior.

On the other hand, "class-warfare" is about the strife between the haves
and have-nots.

In general words can change in meanings, or add new meanings to the old one over time.