I am also an American. While I realize that Hacker News strives for a tone that embraces the ideal of "assume goodwill", I must break with that ethos to respond to you. What you've written is the silliest comment I've seen on Hacker News in many months. In the USA wealth has been concentrating since the 1970s. We now have the most uneven distribution of wealth of any of the developed nations.
Look at the chart "Wealth shares of top percentiles of the net wealth distribution in selected OECD countries":
The elections in the USA are increasingly heated exactly because the USA is increasingly torn apart by divisions of class, and the divisions of class are growing exactly because wealth is concentrating into the hands of the 1%, and even within that 1%, wealth is concentrating into the top 1%, which is the top .0001 of the USA.
"In the USA wealth has been concentrating since the 1970s. We now have the most uneven distribution of wealth of any of the developed nations."
I agree with everything you wrote.
However, I wasn't talking about wealth - I was talking about social class.
The inability to recognize the difference between wealth and social class is probably a good indicator of a relatively flat social hierarchy. In times and places with deep social class division you wouldn't be prone to making that mistake.
You would know exactly which rich person to call "m'lord" and which not to.
You're talking actual statistics; he's talking social psychology. Americans do think/act much in the way he described compared to how Europeans think/act. You are also right that the numbers show us Americans are getting screwed by our system. But we don't shape our culture by the facts/statistics. I wish we did.
Note: I'm an American by birth, and the Western European societies I've interacted with have, except Scandinavian, been enthusiastically classist.
Look at the chart "Wealth shares of top percentiles of the net wealth distribution in selected OECD countries":
https://www.oecd.org/std/household-wealth-inequality-across-...
The elections in the USA are increasingly heated exactly because the USA is increasingly torn apart by divisions of class, and the divisions of class are growing exactly because wealth is concentrating into the hands of the 1%, and even within that 1%, wealth is concentrating into the top 1%, which is the top .0001 of the USA.