Thursday
The concept of a middle class is very new. It emerged in England during the Industrial Revolution. From there it spread throughout the UK and then outward to what became known as the Western world.
Since time immemorial, there had been the few who were strong (rich) and the many who were weak (poor). The strong took from the weak and that was just the way that it was; the natural order of things. The law of the jungle.
Out of the Industrial Revolution emerged free people; the stranglehold of the landowners (rich elite) over their impoverished serfs was broken. The desperate need for labour saw industries bid for the best and brightest. Slowly, those who were once browbeaten penniless serfs acquired money and from that came savings and from that came home-ownership, security and self-respect. A middle class was born.
The law of the jungle, in force for all the millennia of humankind’s existence, was overturned in less than one hundred years by freedom, the Gold Standard and Capitalism. But then I repeat myself, Capitalism is just another word for freedom.
The urge to turn back the clock and to reinstate elite rulers and to reduce the middle class to a position of servitude again is called Socialism.
Socialism is winning; free market Capitalism and the Gold Standard disappeared over one hundred years ago and the remnant defenders of freedom are in disarray. The occupants of the lower I.Q. range are rioting (and voting) to destroy the middle class and to reinstate serfdom.
To have lived seventy-five years and to have witnessed such a precipitous drop in the general I.Q. level is very sad. We could have gone to the stars; we have chosen the ditch.