

Why Everyone Should Be Upper Class - apsec112
http://rationalconspiracy.com/2012/09/12/why-everyone-should-be-upper-class/

======
thejerz
Instead of criticizing the OP, I am going to go out on a branch here and
congratulate him for having the boldness and audacity to tackle a huge social
issue: who gets to live the "sweet life," how come, and if we can change that.

Okay, okay... there are _endless_ points on which to critique the OP and his
article -- just read any of the other comments; most of them are valid. But
that's missing the forrest for the trees.

Any _true_ entrepreneur or hacker should appreciate the scale of the problem
the OP is grappling with, and have respect for him. It's one thing to have an
opinion on nodeJS or NOSQL -- and there's nothing wrong with that -- but
here's someone who is tackling a truly meaningful and big life question. And
for that, I respect him.

If you're with me, upvote this.

~~~
tayl0r
I definitely agree. His piece is flawed but it's interesting.

I would say that the author is simply against huge corporations, and all the
good and bad things that go with them. Would we be better off with only small
businesses? I think not, but it's good discussion.

~~~
nooneelse
Well, there is at least one good thing about having only smaller businesses.
They are more governable by nations, unlike transnational corporations. Since
power-aggregations, like motors, tend to need a governor for stability of the
overall system, that counts as a good thing.

------
languagehacker
Rationalist is right. Offensive garbage like this is proof enough that a
person can't just think on a problem and eventually solve it. This is why we
moved to this thing called empiricism a few hundred years ago and haven't
looked back. Try using evidence to motivate your obnoxious opinions next time.

------
Kaedon
I agree with the basic premise - which seems to be not that everyone should be
upper class but rather that everyone should become more entrepreneurial and
take greater ownership in their careers and business.

I disagree with one of the points the author makes. Here's a quote: "And yet,
here we are, in a country with no peasants. (We also don’t depend on peasants
in other countries – the US is a big food exporter, not importer.)"

In one sense, that's true. The number of farmers has gone down dramatically
with the advent of technology but there's still around 3-4 million migrant /
seasonal workers in the US [1] that act as modern day peasants. If you expand
the definition of peasant beyond farm hands, it could include things such as
low-paid workers in China or the working poor in the US. This particular point
doesn't ring true with me.

[1] - www.ncfh.org/docs/fs-Migrant%20Demographics.pdf

~~~
apsec112
Those aren't peasants, they're laborers. "Peasant" means subsistence farmer.

------
tokenizer
Wow. This article gets a lot of things wrong IMO.

Their points on saving is stupid, when most people live paycheck to paycheck,
and the idea that social class isn't about being in X% but the values you
have? What a load of crap, here's someone who's in the upper class, who has
_GREAT_ values, link: [http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-richest-
woman...](http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-richest-
woman-20120830,0,3323996.story). Being in a certain economic class does not
give you a certain set of ideal that others lack, nor does it negate you any
insight. Everyone is different.

Also, the idea that we don't have peasants and lord anymore, really makes me
confused, considering I have and know many landlords, and that most people who
live in rural areas contribute to the same function as Peasants did (see
Farmers). Just because things become more complex doesn't mean you can ignore
the fact that their are still owners (lords) and workers (peasants), or that
the same idea still isn't absurd (everyone can be rich!!!)...

This article contains sweeping generalizations and a gross amount of naivety.

~~~
apsec112
"Their points on saving is stupid, when most people live paycheck to paycheck"

The whole point is that a) people _shouldn't_ live paycheck-to-paycheck, and
b) it's entirely possible for people to not do so. Many fewer people lived
paycheck-to-paycheck in the 19th century, even though society as a whole was
far poorer. (If a farmer had no savings, how would he live through the winter
every single year?)

"What a load of crap, here's someone who's in the upper class, who has GREAT
values, link: [http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-richest-
woman...](http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-richest-woman....)

First, obviously there will be assholes in every class (and indeed every
social group). So what? That's always true. What does that prove?

Second, that woman isn't even part of the upper class as I've defined it. She
inherited her money - she never started or operated a business. She's part of
the upper class in the old, medieval sense (inherited aristocracy), but such
people are such a tiny fraction of our society that it doesn't seem useful to
reserve the monkier "upper class" for them.

"considering I have and know many landlords"

Huh? Do you really think that a landlord who manages a building is the same
kind of person as a medieval warlord who funds his castle's upkeep by raiding
peasant villages and stealing their cows? That seems like a deliberate
misunderstanding.

"live in rural areas contribute to the same function as Peasants did"

Peasant doesn't just mean "farmer", but "subsistence farmer who owes duties of
obedience to a warlord". We don't have those in the US anymore.

------
gatordan
I will say that the premise is really interesting, "Everyone Should be Upper
Class". That idea alone is probably why it made it to the front page of HN.
But ultimately this is not well written. There were no citations or strong
evidence besides a figure in the last paragraph. The writing meanders and
doesn't support the argument well. And the argument isn't really made clearer
until half way through - upper class means business owning and it is in our
best interest to own or start businesses.

I'm going to make a anecdotal generalization of my own and say that I see
these problems in a number of blog posts that make it onto HN. My two cents:
If you're going take on a tough or controversial premise then take the time to
argue it well, don't gloss over details, please revise, revise, then revise
some more, and finally have other people read it before it gets released to a
wide audience like HN.

------
cousin_it
Ctrl+F "status", no results.

Ctrl+F "positional", no results.

The post is not based on a full understanding of the problem.

------
masterzora
There are enough flaws here that I feel most people are going to focus in on
one or two they found particularly egregious so I will do the same: The
pitching of class as upper vs. middle while entirely ignoring lower is
horrifically offensive in addition to being a major flaw in the argument.
First because we would need to address the poor and how the massive wealth gap
is harmful to all of society before we could even begin to act on any of the
suggestions within. Second because the poor are, in many ways, the peasants
described within or even worse off than the peasants were. Additionally, the
piece portrays anyone who is not in the "upper class" as being so by their own
fault, a viewpoint I got tired enough of in college after a few too many run-
ins with people who could not even imagine what it would be like to be less
than upper-middle class (by current socioeconomic definitions).

~~~
apsec112
"portrays anyone who is not in the "upper class" as being so by their own
fault"

When did I say that, or even imply it? I made an analogy to medieval society,
and no one thinks that it was the peasants' fault they were peasants.

~~~
masterzora
The apparent message of the entire piece is "Want to be upper class? Just
start a business!" without any notion of either (a) how the average person
could do so or (b) how we could begin to change our society/culture in a way
to facilitate the average person being able to do so. Result: it comes across
as something you believe everyone should be able to do as is.

Also, be very careful about sentences like "The middle class has a culture of
spending most money as soon as you earn it." There are certainly parts of the
middle class that are like this. We all know the concept of keeping up with
the Joneses and overextending credit in an attempt to do so. However, there
are also large parts of the middle class (and, again, the lower class you so
ignore) where it's not "culture" it's "necessity". Sure, maybe some could
survive on 20% less but at the cost of things you might take for granted--
living in a safe neighborhood, eating healthy food, or having health
insurance. But, no, surely it's just a culture of unnecessary spending.

It may not have been your _intended_ message, but it's certainly the one that
comes across.

------
cheez
> A big problem with many parts of Africa is that everyone is lower class.

And the problem with many parts of North America is that everyone is a fat
ass.

Please be a little more thoughtful in your sweeping generalizations. Better
yet, don't make any.

~~~
apsec112
Obesity is obviously a problem in many parts of America. What's your point?

~~~
cheez
It's the easy way out. A good way for latte sipping hipsters to feel as if
they understand the world's problems.

~~~
apsec112
[http://rationalconspiracy.com/2012/07/08/the-fallacy-of-
comp...](http://rationalconspiracy.com/2012/07/08/the-fallacy-of-complexity/)

~~~
cheez
Author thinks author is justified in saying stuff that other people don't
agree with.

Film at 11.

S/he is free to have their own opinion. I'm just saying that I think it
betrays a certain lack of sophistication to make wholesale generalizations.

------
Zigurd
This is hilarious, and has been lampooned authoritatively by Steinbeck: ""I
guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians.
Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist."

------
agpen
Congrats, you've sort of discovered bizarro-marxism but phrased it in
ridiculous terms based on a poor grasp of economic realities.

1)Peasants absolutely exist. There's an enormous invisible labor force in the
US that is paid a fraction of minimum wage, let alone a living wage, and
that's not even counting the literal prison slave labor employed in multiple
states. Further, while the US may export a great deal of food, there are
plenty of food types and a majority of manufactured products that are imported
from places where they are made through the exploitation of third world
laborers.

2) Your claim that business-ownership used to be a widespread individual
experience is historically nonsense.

3) The article is full of tautologies like "If you have the human and social
capital to start a business, it means you don’t have to worry so much about
money." Yeah, if you're rich enough to not have to worry about the world
crashing down around you tomorrow, you're rich enough to not have to worry
about the world crashing down around you. Brilliant insight, and also not the
lived experience of 99% of the world's population. Your suggestion that people
simply "choose" to be this way is ridiculous.

4) The assertion that middle-class people spending a majority of their income
as it comes in is "cultural" rather than a reality of saving being a LUXURY
afforded to the few wealthy enough to afford it is both wrong and incredibly
insulting. You're hardly the first person to perpetuate the "poor people just
don't have good money sense" myth but it doesn't make it any less noxious.

And that's just for starters! Wealth is a zero-sum game and capitalism is
built at its very foundation on the upward mobility of wealth through
exploitation of labor. You can't change that with fairy-tale ideas about
everyone magically being able to afford the risks and costs of business
ownership if they just want it bad enough.

~~~
apsec112
1) "Peasant" does not just mean "every lower class person", it means
"subsistence farmer". We don't have subsistence farmers in the US anymore.

2) What's your evidence? Look at any photo of a city street from pre-1930 or
so. Almost every business you see will be owned by some individual or family.

3) "Human and social capital" doesn't mean "rich", it means "human and social
capital". I know several people with huge amounts of human and social capital
who were homeless. Some of them then _got_ rich, which they could do because
they had human and social capital.

4) We _know_ that most people saved during the 19th century, despite being far
poorer than anyone today. It's a basic historical fact - farmers need to save
at least some of income (whether in the form of money, food, or other goods).
How do you make it through the winter otherwise? Harvests only come once or
twice a year.

Wealth is not a zero-sum game, as anyone who knows basic economics can tell
you. See <http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

