Are the lower and middle classes responsible for “Class warfare” as many members of the Mass Media often claim or imply?

In order to know for certain whether or not it is the upper middle or lower classes responsible for class conflicts some of which lead to violence and even real wars it will take time to sort through the details; but it seems pretty obvious to me that the view that the lower and middle classes and some radical elements are solely responsible for the class conflict won’t hold up to much if any scrutiny. The lower and middle classes almost certainly do the vast majority of the work in society; but the upper classes receive a much larger share of the benefits. Even though this is clear to me and presumably many other people it will still help to review the details to figure out what if anything to do about it. One of the biggest reasons the upper classes receive the lions share of the benefits from the work done by society is because the control the most powerful institutions and the have education they need available to them however this isn’t the only part of the problem that needs to be considered.

A review of the history of the conflict between the classes will help understand this better. Unfortunately the history books controlled by the most powerful institutions have been influenced by the upper classes and many of the most extreme conspiracy theorists or rebels tend to exaggerate in the other direction but a few more credible books include “The People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn; “Lies My teacher Told Me” by James Loewen and "Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State" by Alfred McCoy. These books indicate a history where the most powerful people in the USA have routinely pursued one course of action, that often involved suppressing the rights of the poor at home and abroad, and told the public another story that indicated they were protecting democracy. They are well sourced and collect a large amount of information that has been available for a long time but not widely presented to the public. Many members of the public have been aware of small portions of this information since they had to live through it but the information that has been taught by the Mass Media and the history books tend to demonstrate a strong bias in favor of the richest members of society. This isn’t limited to the history of the USA; there is evidence of class discrepancies that go back thousands of years; however the history of the USA has been recorded better and to some degree presented to the public than the rest of history. Also the history of the USA is more applicable to the current class conflicts in the USA and around the world since right or wrong the USA is the sole remaining superpower.

One of the biggest misconceptions about the USA that contributes to class conflict is the assumption that the USA is a democracy; this is false it is a republic. The US constitution has often been glorified as being almost or in some cases entirely above reproach. This should also be considered false. In fact even the founding fathers who many consider above reproach didn’t think it was perfect. Thomas Jefferson once said that the dead shouldn’t rule the living. As he indicated in a speech at the end of the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin also had reservations about the constitution but they signed it because they had to start somewhere. The original constitution didn’t allow woman, Native Americans or blacks to vote. In fact the majority of the control at that time was a small percentage of the white males most of which owned property. In many cases those with less property or political power wound up having to fight for their rights all over again. One of the earliest examples of this was Shays rebellion and as time went on there was the civil war, woman’s suffragette movement, civil rights movements, environmental movements and more. In most if not all of these movements they had to fight or debate against the most powerful entrenched segments of society which until recently consisted of whit males who rarely did much if any thing to help other political factions unless there was something it for them. The most powerful business men have often brought in labor from other parts of the world and hired security forces and often even used political connections to obtain help from the police or National Guard rather than allow wages to increase for the working classes. In many cases they would have almost certainly saved money by negotiating higher wages instead of using a lot of money to hire security and truck in labor from other parts of the country or even world. They have at times even resorted to violence that would have been considered mass murder if not for the fact that they had political power. This isn’t something unique to the USA; in England they once applied the death penalty for a poor person who stole a rasher of cotton from the rich and they forbade the poor from hunting in the kings’ forest. This essentially meant that just to survive for many poor people meant that they had to break one law or another. Many people now claim that we should get over it since these things happened so long ago but in many cases in some parts of the worlds similar things are still happening and the things that happened decades or even hundreds of years ago helped set up today’s institutions which maintain the class differences. Also when the upper classes find it suits their purposes they routinely use historical balances of power to justify their hold on power as part of tradition and precedent; the get over it request doesn’t usually come up until the lower classes start bringing up the problems with history that contradict the glorified versions the upper classes present.

Controlling or influencing the most powerful religious educational and media institutions is one of the most important ways the rich maintain their power over the lower classes. They control a large percentage of the information the poor need to make many of the most important decisions of their lives and they often present it in a distorted way which tends to favor the rich in subtle ways that many people have a hard time recognizing. The celebrities from the upper classes are often portrayed as beneficial especially businesses while the concerns of the poor are often ignored or presented in a way that makes them look bad. They use their control or partially influence over these powerful institutions to control just about everything we do. The most powerful businesses are controlled by a small percentage of board members or CEOs; in many cases the board members are just rubber stamps for the CEOs many of whom may serve as rubber stamps as board members of other companies. The consumers and employees are not entitled to know many of the most important facts about many business transactions. They have a much more difficult time obtaining a fair deal if they have a problem. They may often have to rely on lawyers or accountants who charge a lot of money interpreting a complex system that most people don’t understand but one way or another it provides the lions share of the benefits to the upper classes whoa also have the most influence making these confusing laws. It is often considered beneficial to stand up for business; but rarely ever considered beneficial to stand up for consumers. That doesn’t mean it is portrayed this way though; they usually come up with a explanation about how the market protects the consumer by providing choices or competition. The problem is that the competition, if there is any, is usually controlled by many of the same corporations creating oligopolies that don’t compete in the most important matters that benefit the consumer since they would lower the profits for the corporations.

In a truly democratic country the public would have more influence over many of the most powerful institutions especially since there are many cases where people from the lower classes have often given up their lives and continue to have their environment threatened by the activities of many of the most powerful corporations. The assumption that only the business owners should have the information they need to conduct business is highly undemocratic and is an invitation to wide spread fraud which has been happening for hundreds of years. In most cases they aren’t exposed until after it is to late to do anything about it; but the incidents in the past should indicate that unless something is done to change the fact that corporations are allowed to conduct most of their activities in secrecy, until a disaster happens and then avoid more than a token amount of compensation for the victims, then it is virtually guaranteed that more of this criminal activities will happen in the future. They have often made laws to protect the consumer when it was necessary to appease the public but then they allow the corporations to act in secrecy so that there is no way they can enforce these laws making these laws almost meaningless.

One major contributing factor to the class conflicts is what some academics including Melvin Kohn call conservative authoritarianism and self direction. Conservative authoritarianism refers to the belief that authority should be respected often without question; in the strictest cases the followers will obey orders no matter what like the Nazi’s obeyed their leaders. This isn’t necessarily this extreme; when they are led by leaders with good intentions that have the best interest of the public in mind this would in theory lead to a well organized group of people working for a common cause. The problem is that throughout history there have been few if any leaders that really did have the best interest of the majority in mind; and even if they did that doesn’t mean they know enough about all the relevant subjects especially in the modern complex society, to make the best decision. Self direction is the ability for people to work on their own and figure things out for themselves. Kohn has found that the highest and the lowest classes tend to value conservative authoritarianism more; however they don’t necessarily do so in the same manner. The lowest classes tend to obey authority and believe what they’re told even in many cases when it doesn’t make any sense. They often tend to teach this to their children as well; this is one of the rare cases where they are the authority figure since they are at the bottom of the economic ladder in the adult world although in many cases they look down on people of other races perhaps for prejudicial reasons. The members of the higher classes tend to teach their children to respect authority more as well but they have the expectation in many cases that they will be at the top of the economic ladder when they work their way up under the instruction of their leaders. These leaders tend to teach their children to maintain the current class system. Regardless of which class it is the belief in conservative authoritarianism is generally taught at a young age. This is often taught with strict disciplinarian methods that often begin before the child even learns to talk. In many of the most extreme cases the child is punished with harsh methods before he understands why he is being punished. Other academic sources have done more research into this subject including Alice Miller, Philip Greven and Murray Strauss; many of them have found that, in the most extreme cases, this type of child rearing leads to dysfunctional behavior and blind trust in the authority figure regardless of whether or not they are right. Murray Strauss and Alice Miller as well as Benjamin Spock have stated that any physical discipline of children is counter productive in the long run. This leads to more violent behavior later in life and it teaches children to conform and obey authority with little or no scrutiny. This type of child rearing prevents children from using discretion on their own and learning to figure things out for themselves. It also prevents them from developing the thinking skills required to hold their leaders accountable. Children that are raised in this way are much more likely to accept ideological belief systems as being above reproach without actually understanding them; therefore if there is a problem with the belief system they won’t be able to recognize and fix it. This type of child rearing is one of the biggest and least recognized obstacles to a true democracy. In order for there to be a true democracy the public has to have access to the information they need to make decisions and they have to have the capacity to think rationally about it and come to reasonable conclusions. Melvin Kohn and other researchers have also found that schizophrenia is much more common among the lower classes and those that are abused the most ass children. They don’t all agree that child abuse is the cause of schizophrenia but they do agree that even if it isn’t it makes it much worse and leads to more emotional problems and violence later in life. Trauma early in life often leads to much less capacity to rise up in the class system and ensures that many of the people from the lower classes and their descendents remain there. This also contributes to anger which makes divide and rule tactics more effective leading people to blame other races or creeds for their problems preventing the lower classes from uniting and helping to correct the most important problems in a class society. This leads to many people in the lower classes to following beliefs that are clearly against their best interest. People with conservative authoritarian values are more likely to accept the argument that certain members of the lower classes are responsible for the class conflicts and they often take the side of the upper classes even when it is against their own best interests. They are more likely to accept the claim that the upper classes deserve the lion’s share of the credit for creating the corporations that provide the necessities of life and jobs. People with more self direction skills are more likely to believe that they deserve a bigger share of the benefits from the work done by cooperation among the workers and the owners. This enables the upper classes to turn the two sides against each other using divide and rule tactics. The people with conservative authoritarian values are often rewarded with a modest raise of the ability to keep their jobs abut usually no more than the upper classes need to provide to get them back to work. In order for their to be a better balance their needs to be more people raised to have self direction skills necessary to think independently instead of blindly following orders. In many cases if those with conservative authoritarian values are told to do something wrong they will keep on doing it that way until they are told to stop. In many cases if they have a problem they won’t be able to figure out how to solve it even if it is relatively simple. This could be the result of insecurity developed as a young child. When they challenge authority as a young child they may have been subject to severe and often violent punishment. This leads to more concern about avoiding punishment given out when disobeying authority than it does the ability to figure out how to solve the problem. Even if they do see the problem they may be to insecure to speak out against authority. They may not even remember what caused the fear of punishment consciously but they react to it anyway. This is because if it happens early in life, the first few years, chi8ldren often forget the details but this is the time where they develop many of the personality characteristics that develop throughout their lives whether they remember it or not.

A sincere democracy requires more people, if not all people, that have the ability to think for themselves. This will also be required to solve class conflicts in the most effective way possible. Teaching self direction skills means relying more on nonviolent ways of raising children and spending time with them. This often means letting them make small mistakes and learn from them then explaining things to them. Many parents that were raised in strict disciplinarian ways may not know how to do this so they may need help, assuming their willing to accept help. This may seem like more work but in the long run it takes much less time to raise children properly than it does to deal with them when they become dysfunctional adults one way or another. Either they get involved in a violent crowd a cult or they become less productive and wind up causing other kinds of problems.

Ideologies have often contributed to the differences in classes and the way they’re understood or not understood. Part of the problem is that many people don’t truly understand what the most well known ideologies mean. This leads to what I consider a difference between rational ideologies which are based on a clear understanding of the beliefs and cult ideologies which are based on the way they are presented to the public by their leaders often in an emotional way. In order to understand the difference it will help to consider the literal meaning of most ideologies and the way they are used in practice. This may not be as easy as it sound initially since many of the people that define these ideologies rely on the way people use them and people that use them don’t use them consistently. The easiest way that I know of to address this would be to look at the literal meaning of many of these ideologies many of which are made up of suffixes and prefixes. This could start with the word ideology itself. This is a word made of the word idea with the suffix ology. The suffix ology means the study of in this case the study of ideas or an ideology is essentially a belief system based on a group of ideas. These ideas can be defined in an organized fashion so that people will have the opportunity to understand them and use a consistent definition. Unfortunately this isn’t the way it is done with the general public. People in the academic world may do this but the message delivered to the public often tends to be from demagogues sometimes like Joe McCarthy.

The three most well known fiscal ideologies are examples of what happens when the definition given to the public is confusing and often contradictory. This has a major impact on class conflicts. Capitalist is based on the word capital which means those with the most money. It has often been said that the new “Golden rule” is that the person with the gold makes the rules. This seems to be the way things work more often than not in the USA unless the public provides a major amount of organization in order to get their point across. Other wise the leaders seem to continue consulting with their contributors and political operatives to figure out how to make decisions and what to tell the public to keep them compliant. In practice the belief in capitalism seems to be that the private industry can do everything best and the government is incompetent. This isn’t actually the way it works but they present it this way. In fact in many cases throughout history the major corporations have relied on government help to build up their power. The railroads obtained property through huge government giveaways. The Mass Media received the rights to the airways from the government then when small operators tried to use micro-radio they relied on the government to protect their oligopolies. When there were strikes from unions throughout the history of the USA the government almost always took the side of the businesses in many cases using the police or National Guard to break up strikes and get people back to work without improving the living standards of the workers. The concern about Big Government doesn’t seem to get much air time until Big Government stands up for the rights of the poor of the environment. Then it is redefined in a confusing way that seems to make it sound like they are infringing on the rights of the poor not the other way around. Another problem with the complaint about the government being incompetent is that they are often incompetent because of political appointees who are sometimes chosen at the request of those that do the complaining about the incompetence. In other words in a confusing round about way the people that complain about government incompetence may be partially responsible for it. If we had election reform and a more open government there might be more competent officials hired based on qualifications instead of patronage. Letting those that don’t want government to be competent make the decisions won’t help things.

Communism and Socialism are also ideologies that have been misrepresented and badly understood. Communism is based on the word Commune which is a group of people living together. The earliest versions of this that I know of involved making decisions as a group and sharing the benefits among all. This may have worked out fairly well in many less known cases on a small and local basis. When it was put into place by the Soviet Union it was done by a dictator in a manner that didn’t take into the consideration any input from the people doing the work and it was a total disaster. This wasn’t the version of communism that many people including Karl Marx described but Marx’s name was used by Stalin because it served his purpose to make him seem legitimate by those who believed in Marx. It also served the best interest of the believers in Capitalism because they could demonize it. Socialism is very similar; it is based on the word social which means people working together. Both these ideologies have broad potential definitions and they are presented to the public in a way that suits the purpose of those that have the most political power and demagogues that serve their purpose. Both these ideologies are supposed to stand up for the rights of the poor and the workers as well as students. It is hard to say that the poor, the students and the workers shouldn’t have rights so many of the demagogues use a round about way of distorting these ideologies to get their distorted message out. This doesn’t deliver a clear message but it confuses the issue and enables many politicians to accomplish what they want. In order to address this; the public needs to review many of the ideologies many of them thought they understood. Those that see problems with theses ideologies or at least admit they don’t understand them will have a much easier time with this. Some people with conservative authoritarian values may have a harder time with this. In many cases they have had catch phrases drilled into their heads for years and they equate this with understanding even though they are often full of contradictions.

In order to set up a rational fiscal ideology it will be necessary to sort through the details. Deciding that the government should either do everything or nothing sounds simple but when it comes to putting it into practice it isn’t that easy and despite the rhetoric of many of the advocates of all the most popular ideologies none of them do this. The capitalist ideology has never been entirely run by businesses nor should it. Recently when they broke down as many of the regulations that they could it lead to an enormous amount of corruption and they proved that the corporations without any accountability could be as bad as a government without accountability. The current system isn’t doing much if anything to accomplish many of the most important jobs for the majority including educating the poor and middle classes, protecting the consumers and protecting the environment. The claim that government is incompetent is true as indicated before but it is partly because they aren’t open and they have been corrupted by the corporations. Some of the governments like the USSR and China didn’t apply their ideologies in a manner that protected the poor either but they may have had some good ideas that are worth considering. Some of the other countries may have had more success than these two countries and in some cases some of the countries in central America and other parts of the world may have tried to implement more reasonable versions but they were unsuccessful due to the interference of the USA and the CIA. If not for the interference they probably wouldn’t have been perfect but they would have at least had a chance to try some better ideas. Finding a good middle ground between the two may involve reviewing the way both USA capitalism and the Socialism versions of other country’s work as well as considering new ideas if it doesn’t appear that one of these systems provide the best answer. Assuming that the way people do thing in America  is the only way to do things is foolish especially with all the damage being done to the environment and the non stop wars we keep fighting.

The biggest difference between a cult ideology and a rational academic ideology may be whether they organize the information and check the facts or they use hype and propaganda to advance an agenda which most people don’t understand.