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I think you mean CB. But I kinda of follow both sides of this debate. Yes start near at hand, but keep the grand view in mind.
And yes I agree the elites seem closer to their interest than we on the outside might imagine. Maybe the high finance boyz really don't care as long as their money flows in the next week, next month, next quarter. Maybe there are selected parts of the elite who might care what happens to the US population and its working class, but I sort of doubt that.
I really don't know what is going on in the elite mind. They seem to be single handedly responsible for catastrophy after catastrophy from the crashing global economy, to the wars and revolts across the middle east and south asia, to Fukashima to the Gulf Oil disaster, and their political establishment's response is to cover-up for the obvious criminal action of the elite oligarky.
I`ve had to stay away from all that lately. It's too depressing to watch.
CG
^^^^^^^^ CB: Yes, most of the actual rich do not have to spend time thinking about politics. There is a significant republican in the sense of representational democracy within the rulng class. They are , afterall , the bourgeoisie who introduced modern democracy to the world. I don't mean that they vote, but they know how to establish political managing offices - representatives of the mass of bourgeoisie, who manage the US political system . The rich don't have enough votes to win elections in the actual state sphere. Also, actually from the standpoint of the ruling class economic interests, they are in a period of roaring success. We are in a period when the ruling class a greater proportion of all the money than most in interest. We may be setting records for maldistribution of wealth. Most of the rich are steady as you go. Keep creating economic crises. The rich get rich off of general economic crises. You know. when the going gets rough; the rough get going. Capitalist thy name is Catastrophist. The ruling class are the rich. The crises are not crises for the rich. Bottomline out of the 2008 financial crisis, the FIRE corporations got paid. They got the money from the working class. High unemployment, foreclosures, and increased poverty are not in crisis for the rich , by definition.
Is it fair to say that we are at an historical ebb in terms of challenges to the capitalist system from mass, working class organized struggle in the US ? I know there are other crises which some allege can be capitalism destroying itself , Roubini and others are the latest. I'm not talking about a Wall Street crash bringing the system down which will never happen as we saw in 2008. This low level of working class resistance struggle means as far as the masses of the ruling class are concerned their political representatives are doing a fine job at running the system. They can be idly rich.