My favorite thing about working in fast food is that it offers an honest glimpse of how the majority of the population lives, and most people are not doing well. Relatively cheap food out is becoming a luxury, and my hours are being reduced because fewer people have the money to treat themselves the way they did in the past. As sarcastically as can be read, it is almost as if destroying the discretionary income of all classes made it impossible for others to gain at their expense. I have been pondering why there is such hate towards the existence of a middle class, and I have determined that the wealthy hate the middle class because it reminds wealthy people that they are not invincible.
Continuing with my example of fast food, consider the infrastructure that was required to keep that business in place. First, people had to stop consistently cooking their own meals in their own homes with their own recipes. Then, more people had to commute so that not just fast food, but gas stations and convenience stores needed to have stable markets. Finally, people had to have enough disposable income to justify spending it on a type of food that was completely unnecessary. Now, fewer commuters have enough disposable income, and if they do, they spend it on their rising grocery costs. So many fast food franchises are about to shutter because everyone with money had something to prove, and destroyed the illusion of democracy just to prove it.
One fascination that people have about abusers is their ability to destroy the objects of their affection. In the first moments, there are declarations of undying love and impeccable attention to detail. However, making all those gestures reminds abusers that if they can fall so desperately in love, they should be equally desperate to prove that their “lovers” were never needed by destroying them. The middle class created billionaires, and the only resources they lack control of are those of the dwindling middle class. For decades, there were appeals to the “middle class,” but now, the billionaires are obsessed with having all the resources in the world so that they can have “total” control over their destinies, regardless of any accountability.
People can tell that the billionaires hate the middle class by seeing all their efforts to take away all the methodology leading to the middle class and prevent its resurrection. Back in the day, as older folks tend to say, college used to be a “guarantee” to a decent paying job that could feed a family; same with trades, and skilled tradespeople could become entrepreneurs. Now, college costs too much and is never “worth it” anymore because the “elite” gamble on student loan debt, and trades are becoming automated to “reduce costs.” There is no reasonable advice anyone can give someone because it is unclear what the ultimate destination is for the destruction of all the ways people had developed to earn living wages. If there is no way to become middle class, the “elites” have full control, and that is the only thing they understand.
Consequently, the “elites'” lack of social and emotional intelligence prevented them from acknowledging that the destruction of stability would lead to absolute unrest. There have been more mass shootings, more crime in wealthier communities–even in Austin, Texas, and people have been acting out in the most bizarre ways. In the minds of “elites,” they get to keep taking and there are no direct consequences to anything they do. Such people were generally raised around people telling them that they were right all the time, so being introduced to consequences is a foreign concept. Even though there have been so many prominent gun deaths, the “elites” still refuse to contend that they might have done something wrong in taking away everyone’s resources, livelihoods, and opportunities for emotional stability.
Economists say that businesses are the natural enemy of democracy because guardrails eliminate the capacity to reach unlimited capital. Granted, there is no such thing as unlimited resources and people should recognize that the planet is finite, but logic never stopped an aspiring billionaire. All the “elites” who are flourishing during these trying times are making themselves irrelevant after proving that they cannot coexist within a functioning society. As a Black woman, I will not say that the society was functioning well, largely because it depended first on my free labor, and then on my wildly underpaid labor without socioeconomic mobility. However, it was “easier” for the Black community to gain resources when we could consistently have jobs without everyone being given the green light to attack us in public–again.
Honestly, most of the “elites” were using the previous society to hide how useless they are. Stupid people make money, but smart people solve problems, and the only thing between smart people and solutions are stupid people with money. There have been countless answers to the environmental crises, but because the answers generally do not lead to great wealth, people call them “crazy.” Multiple branches of the social sciences have detailed how to solve social ills, but because housed people have the emotional energy to think clearly and critically, “elites” are not interested in those responses, either. When the only question someone has is, “When do I get rich?” that person is effectively useless because if society collapses, all of their resources are worthless–as are they.
Chasing A Dying Empire 