Anonymous ID: dbbbf0 April 12, 2020, 6:57 p.m. No.8774136   🗄️.is đź”—kun

America’s birth represented a dramatic break from the past. Save for a few vestiges of the old European feudal order, mostly in the plantation economy of the Deep South, there was no hereditary nobility, no national church and, thanks to George Washington’s modesty, no royal authority.

 

At least among whites, there was also far less poverty in America, compared to Europe’s in­tense, intractable, multigenerational poverty. In contrast, as Jeffer­son noted in 1814, America had fewer “paupers,” and the bulk of the pop­ulation was “fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to la­bor moderately and raise their families.”

 

Yet in recent decades this country has begun to show signs of growing feudalization. This trend has been most pronounced in the economy, where income growth has skewed dramatically towards the ultra-rich, creating a ruling financial and now tech oligarchy. This is a global phenomenon: Starting in the 1970s, upward mobility for middle and working classes across all advanced economies began to stall, while the prospects for the upper classes rose dramatically.

 

The fading prospects for the new generation are all too obvious. Once upon a time, when the boomers entered adulthood, they en­tered an ascendant middle class. According to a recent study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve, their successors, the millennials, are in danger of be­coming a “lost generation” in terms of wealth accumulation.