The upper class wants the fruits of being wealthy, they're generally not in it for the "subjugation" aspect. With sufficient automation and efficiency/recycling, everyone could be what we call "upper class".
You need to expand your social circle :P Obviously, a generalisation about an entire class is one generalisation on top of another, but i've had discussions with people who have explicitly told me they don't really care how good/bad things are, as long as they are better than others.
Ditto with skills, tests. Don't care, just as long as i'm above others.
A lot of people don't REALLY want to abolish slavery or heirachies. What really want is to ensure they're considered the masters.
> but i've had discussions with people who have explicitly told me they don't really care how good/bad things are, as long as they are better than others.
No question that mentality exists, I'll argue that it's a very small minority of eg millionaires in any society that hold such a view.
There are around 11 to 13 million (not including primary residence) millionaires in the US; or around 4.5% to 5% of the adult population. The typical millionaire in the US is worth about $3 to $4 million. While it's a very large group of people spread across the country, they do have a few things in common.
The majority acquired that status from working extremely hard for a very long time, usually either operating and or selling relatively small businesses with no more than between a few dozen up to a hundred employees, or slogging away for decades piling up invested wealth slowly over their lifetime.
The millionaire class in the US is numerically overwhelmingly dominated by those types of outcomes and has been since the industrial revolution.
Extreme wealth on the other hand obviously is concentrated in a few thousand persons with unusual outlier situations, usually around very large business concerns. My suspicion is that group is dramatically more likely to have a master of the universe mentality.
I grew up in an area where there were many millionaires. You would have been hard pressed to distinguish most of them from any blue collar worker they employed. They were all hard workers themselves, they generally drove vehicles no different to pretty much everyone else, they lived in houses much as most others in the area.
I went to school with their children and their wealth was not shown in any obvious way. We were all equal.
To maintain their wealth required long hours, hard work and generally being fair to everyone around them. Within the same area, we had people who didn't have the same level of wealth but considered themselves superior because they were lawyers, or bank managers or other professionals. These carried an air of distinction and superiority and many considered the "millionaires" as plebs.
One cannot generalise about any group based on some specific characteristic like money. Each of them is an individual and though some can and do take up airs, others do not. I have a son to whom I have lent money so that he can get ahead and he has always shown himself responsible, including paying me back. The way he is going, he will be a millionaire long before I am. I have another son to whom I will not lend any money to, as he has shown that he cannot handle the responsibility. They were both brought up the same way, only one took up the challenge to be financially proficient.
Different people will act and react in different ways and you cannot paint any group of people with the same brush.
Seems like a false dichotomy. For instance, Bill Gates' family was very well-off, but they never gave him a million bucks as an inheritance. What they did give him was private schooling, business connections, and computer time that allowed him to build a business and win a monopoly when everyone else was worried about getting a job.
> No question that mentality exists, I'll argue that it's a very small minority of eg millionaires in any society that hold such a view.
I'd say it's the majority of millionaires that I've met (all successful small business owners).
They all worked very hard for their wealth and built it over a lifetime, as you said, but every single one of them relished screwing over others and being better than others. They worked like they did for their egos, and not much else. And all of them are virulently committed to making sure they stay on top, even if the top is sinking.
I know there are plenty of people who want to feel like the masters of the universe. But the bulk of the upper class in the US (the economic class) is composed of professionals like doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, engineers, etc. If you take a broad sampling of those people, most of them are in it more for the nice houses, cars, vacations, interesting work, social esteem, and freedom.
This seems to be a confluence of social class and economic class. Those who are concerned about economic class don't care about the subjugation part. Social class, particularly of the hereditary kind, may be concerned with it.
"""the social group that has the highest status in society, especially the aristocracy.
"it is important that the children of the upper class attend the ‘right’ school"
"""
I could have the same goods as you, but we'll find a way of distinguishing ourselves based on accent, assuredly. Speaking as a Brit.
This is under the fallacious basis that one only becomes wealthy by appeasing the wealthy... by getting into their social group. Which is hardly how modern economies work (although politicians has made great strides in shifting economies back towards that under the guise of a well-intentioned 'helping hand').
If anything we should be striving to limit the power of artisotricacy type groups (whether in dynastical political families, special interest group form, oligopolistic industry cartels with political pull, etc, etc).
No it's not. It's on the basis that wealth has little to do with social class, especially if you make everyone equally wealthy. People will find new ways to distinguish between one another. It's intrinsic to humanity.
> People will find new ways to distinguish between one another.
I don't see anything especially wrong with that as long as said distinction isn't built on some kind of vertical hierarchy which involves downwards oppression/discrimination.
People can be vastly different yet still consider each other as equals. The only reason we think of this as a contraction is that for the longest time humans have solely organized themselves in vertical hierarchies where the "top" is supposed "the best" going down to the "bottom" with the supposed "worst".
That's why so many people are conditioned to always strife for the top, for them it's the goal of the game, but a games goal can be changed, just like its rules.
Sure, people will always try to make a social hierarchy, even when there's no difference in material wealth. Trying to feel better than others and climbing the social ladder is not "subjugation of the lower classes", though.
That's fine, though. Subcultures can invent their own hierarchies and enjoy feeling superior to one another without harming each other.
Maybe you look down on me because I don't even have a HAM radio license, maybe somebody else considers himself superior because he knows a lot about wines, maybe other person thinks she's cooler because she knows everything about 80s punk bands...
Fair enough, I should have specified that I was thinking of the American upper class, which I think is typically based primarily on wealth, rather than a parallel social hierarchy.
regardless of intent, the upper classes have material conditions that condition their behavior. Regardless of how they come off upon meeting, they still would rather have subjugation and hold their position than work to create an egalitarian society.
Generally it's suggested to keep a consistent identity on HN as it suggests more reasonable discourse when people understand their actions follow them. Discourse is fun, rational discourse with consistency is what makes this site amazing.
Unfortunately humans tend to measure their wealth relative to others ("keeping up with the Joneses"), so making everyone equally wealthy probable doesn't improve average or maximum happiness in the population.
In developed countries even the poorest are infinitely better off than the upper class in medieval times, safe for the aspect that they're not richer than their peers. That seems to be a very important factor for happiness.
Speak for yourself! I'm in the wealth game so I can get other people to do things for me. Machines performing the labour isn't authentic, doesn't have the same meaning.
