I'd agree. But I've always wondered.... I suspect people in power are terrified that everyone will wake up one day and want to take their shit. I saw this psycho-drama reveal itself, vividly, online post 9/11. What happened filled a lot of people's fantasies: here we are, number one, the big bully on the block -- and that means a lot of people want to take us down. the neo-corpus that i read at PNAC is based on the premise: once you are number one, you must do everything to maintain that position. no one is a friend, everyone an enemy. maybe a handful are frenemies. All of them are jealous and want to take you down and take your shit. Never sit still for a minute. never assume you're safe. they're all out to getchya.
I've seen this thinking from well-to-do folks in grad school. for them, when the word "working class" was mentioned, what they feared was that, to address the exploring class in the u.s. was tantamount to having to give up their car. To paraphrase one woman in a grad seminar, "Well, it's interesting reading about people from different class backgrounds. But what am I supposed to do about it? Give my car to a poor person?" The hordes: they want my stuff.
I suspect it's that way for capitalists: a deep inner terror that people hate and resent them for having so much stuff, that people will come after them and take it all away. the left doesn't have to be a real threat.
i think this same psychodrama plays itself out for the petty bourg and middling tea-baggers. "i don't have that much shit, but it's more than most people got. omigod, they're going to take my shit! these raving, angry hordes of people-with-a-whole-lot-less-shit-than-i-got."
shag
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)