Theory of the Loser Class 3
Very early on in the history of shooting my mouth off on the internet, I realized that fundamental to Republicanism is a belief that wealth equals virtue, indeed, that possession of wealth bestows virtue, regardless of how the wealth was obtained or the purposes to which it is put.
It is a rather touching, if somewhat Calvinistic, faith in money as All That Really Matters.
At MarketWatch, Rex Nutting explains how the Ryan budget manifests this belief:
We knew why they called it “the working class.” We developed theories about the leisure class that explained why the rich spent so much time, energy and money making sure that no one would ever confuse them with someone who actually worked, with someone who got calluses or got sunburned. Read Thorstein Veblen’s book, ‘The Theory of the Leisure Class.’
Somehow, however, in the popular imagination, the rich and the poor have switched places. Now, it’s the rich who toil from sun-up to sundown, while the idle poor among us never lift a finger.
Read the whole thing.
April 21, 2012 at 3:15 pm
I suggest a new bromide: Wealthiness is next to godliness.
April 21, 2012 at 11:08 pm
In Wingnut World, wealthiness is superior to Godliness.
It’s like the old apocryphal quote: Look what God could do if he just had money.
April 22, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Yes, that loaves and fishes thing, it made those lazy asses dependent on Jesus, they never worked again, fell into criminal vices. So Jesus decided henceforth that every beggar of food would lose two teeth everytime he or she received a handout until they got sick of destroying their smiles bit by bit and became truly independent.