Do think people in the poor and middle class can ever set aside their differences and form a unified voice?

Question

I feel the poor and middle class in America and the world could have a much better lifestyle if they could only become unified. However, I have also noticed the poor and middle class can become violently oppossed to one another over the smallest of details. It reminds me of a chicken fight. Humans force the chickens to peck and harm each other until they will fight on their own. One would think the chickens would know better, yet are humans just as ignorant?

Answer 1

Not a chance in He**!

Answer 2

Form a unified WHAT? You know the middle class and poor make up 99% of the country.

Anyway you make it sound like it is the rich that are making the poor fight the middle class, and make the middle class ignore the poor. The truth is that the poor and middle class have and always will hate each other and the rich rise to power on their own merit, even if the rise to riches was obtained by the fighting itself.

Answer 3

Depends on the situation. If we're talking about the poor through the middle-middle class against the upper echelons, then they can and occasionally do unify on some issues. However, you need to make a more clear distinction between what you are referring to as the "middle class". There is a huge difference between the lower-middle class and the upper-middle class on quite a few issues. The lower-middle class tends to side more with the poor, while the upper-middle class tends to side with the "elites". It isn't just as simple as class relations in the differences on issues. You have to take into account regional, social, ethnic, etc. differences, as well as the specific issue being discussed. Politics is far more complicated than just class divisions. You are trying to simplify divisions that just can't be simplified like this.

Answer 4

So, in your mind, how do the two become "unified"? You seem to be basing the difference on money, so does the "middle class" need to continue giving more of their hard-earned money to people who (in way too many cases) are too lazy or ignorant to accomplish this on their own? I realize that not all people who are "poor" are lazy, nor ignorant, but the fact is that the "poor" class is giving way too many opportunities and free rides at the middle class' expense. Until that stops, there will always be a division.

The Warlock

Answer 5

I doubt that you will be able to find any real examples of any noticeable divides on any issue based purely on social class.

The are poor conservatives and there are poor liberals. Just as the middle-class has both conservatives and liberals.

And it gets even more hazy when you consider that most people are conservative on some issues but liberal on others.

Answer 6

I think they should illiminate the poor altogether and make it Richy Rich, Rich, and Middle Class. No one deserves to live in poverty and its not fair that a chosen few are classified as poor and have to live in poverty. Or maybe these people are being punished from another life for some reason, who knows, but we all deserve to be TREATED EQUALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As for the question are humans igornant, yes they would be if they contribute to someone's poverty. But if they contribute to helping to get rid of poverty then no.

Answer 7

Let me share a clip article that I find interesting that relates to your subject.

Conflict

If all nations go on trying to increase their wealth, production, consumption and "living standards" without limit in a world of limited resources, then we must expect increasing conflict. Rich world affluent lifestyles require us to be heavily armed and aggressive, in order to guard the empires from which we draw more than our fair share of resources. We cannot expect to achieve a peaceful world until we achieve a just world, and we cannot do that until rich countries change to much less extravagant living standards.

The absurdly impossible implications of economic growth.

The foregoing argument has been that the present levels of production and consumption are quite unsustainable. They are too high to be kept going for long or to be extended to all people. But we are determined to increase present living standards and levels of output and consumption, as much as possible and without any end in sight. Our supreme national goal is economic growth. Few people seem to recognise the absurdly impossible consequences of pursing economic growth.

If we have a 3% p.a. increase in output, by 2070 we will be producing 8 times as much every year. (For 4% growth the multiple is 16.) If by then all 9 billion people expected had risen to the living standards we would have then, the total world economic output would be more than 60 times as great as it is today! Yet the present level is unsustainable. (For a 4% p.a. growth rate the multiple is 120.)

Social Breakdown.

We are seeing increasing social breakdown, stress and depression, drug abuse, suicide, litigation, decay of communities, rural decline and loss of social cohesion. Attitudes to the poor, homeless and unemployed are hardening. Each of us must focus on competing to succeed as a self-interested aggressive entrepreneur, and we must not expect much assistance from the state, for instance in old age. Public institutions like museums and even universities are expected to operate like corporations that must sell to customers and make a profit.

Because of this corporate pressure to reduce the power and activity of government, and the power of the corporations to avoid paying tax, governments are drastically cutting their spending on public institutions and welfare, which is increasing the deprivation and suffering of large numbers of poorer people. Governments no longer have full employment as an important goal. The main role of government now is to provide the conditions for business prosperity.

It has become a divided, winner-take-all society, with many now classified as "excluded". The rich, including the upper-middle class which does the top managerial and legal work for the corporations, and the professionals, are rapidly increasing their wealth and have no interest in calling for change. Inequality and polarisation are accelerating. The state has ceased to be very concerned with redistribution of wealth. The greed evident in bank fees, corporate executive salaries, legal and professional fees, cheap sell-offs of public assets, etc does not evoke significant resistance.

All this is sociologically appalling. Damage is being done to social cohesion, public spirit, trust, good will and concern for the public interest. You cannot have a satisfactory society made up of competitive, self-interested individuals all trying to get as rich as possible! In a satisfactory society there must be considerable concern for the public good and the welfare of all, and there must be considerable collective social control and regulation and service provision, to make sure all are looked after, to maintain public institutions and standards, and to reinforce the sense of social solidarity whereby all are willing to contribute to the good of all.

"But can't technical advance solve the problems?"


Most people assume that the development of better technology will enable us to go on enjoying affluent lifestyles and pursuing limitless economic growth, e.g., by reducing the energy and resource inputs needed to produce things. However the magnitude of our over-consumption makes this impossible.

Perhaps the best known "technical fix" optimist, Amory Lovins, claims that we could at least double global output while halving the resource and environmental impacts, i.e., a "factor 4" reduction.

Let us assume that present global resource and ecological impacts must be halved. Now if all 9 billion people expected on earth by 2070 were to rise to present rich world "living standards" world economic output would be 10 times as great as it is at present. If we in rich countries average 3% growth, and 9 billion rose to the living standards we would then have by 2070, total world output would be 60 times as great as it is today.

Do you think technical advance will make it possible to multiply total world economic output by 60 while halving impacts, i.e., a factor 120 reduction?

Clearly we can't possibly get resource consumption and environmental impact down to sustainable levels without dramatically reducing present volumes of production and consumption, economic turnover, and present rich world "living standards". The "technical fix" optimists seriously mislead people into thinking that we can achieve a sustainable world without any reduction on consumer ways, and indeed that growth can go on.

Greed and history

History can largely be put in terms of people struggling to grab more than their fair share of the available wealth and power. Consider the behaviour of states over recent centuries, constantly jockeying diplomatically and fighting each other. Why? Simply because they are never content to live with what they have and to organise satisfactory lifestyles for themselves within their own borders. There are always classes of energetic "entrepreneurs" who are not content with being wealthy; they want more, so they go out looking for more resources and markets, and try to outmanoeuvre and bully their rivals. States constantly strive to increase their wealth, territory, status and power. Meanwhile "ordinary" people would have mansions and luxurious lifestyles if they could.

Yet there are many people living in what we refer to as "primitive tribes" who maintain stable social systems within stable boundaries and are not constantly seeking to outsmart or steal from their neighbours. This is not true of all tribes, but it is true of many, and it is totally foreign to Western culture with its restless urge to go out and acquire, conquer, build empires and take over markets or one way or another to get more and more.

Most people fail to grasp these connections between greed and conflict. They wonder why there are poor nations, conflict, and poverty. Every now and then their leaders tell them their children must go to war and slaughter the children of other people just like themselves. They don’t like this much but it never occurs to them that they have brought it on their own heads, by being keen supporters and beneficiaries of the grabbing that has led to the conflict. They have been enthusiastic about the empire building, the quest for more markets, the pursuit of national prestige, the promise to raise "living standards", and they want to be members of "a great and powerful nation". Why can’t they be content to be members of a noble and admirable nation, or a caring nation, or an ecologically sustainable nation? Above all they want the high "living standards" they can't have without taking more than their fair share.

At a deeper level there is the problem of lack of meaning and purpose in consumer-capitalist society. Many suffer unsatisfying work, lack of community, dreary dormitory suburbs, and little purpose in life other than shopping, sport and mindless entertainment. They can have little pride in their society and are at best cynical about politics. They have little sense of power over their circumstances or of making a valued contribution. This is mostly because corporations have taken from us the provision of almost all the things we used to make and do; they want us to buy all entertainment, products and services from them.

These people would angrily reject the claim that they are greedy; they only want "normal" and "nice" things and "good" standards. They do not realise that what is regarded as normal in rich countries involves levels of resource consumption that are grossly unsustainable and condemn most of the world's people to deprivation. Essential to The Simpler Way is the understanding that affluence is an enormous moral problem, and a serious mistake because it is a basic cause of global problems.