When dreams run out of steam

Being numerically insignificant, a ruling class can only maintain its dominion if it has the support of a larger group, obtained by combining mercenary and ideological means. This intermediary group transmits orders and supervises their execution, a thankless task that is compensated by above median incomes and the impression of moving up socially. The Middle Class learns to mimic the Upper Class on a modest scale, and dreams of fame and fortune. The Working Class, those who actually do things, is also fed the dream and aspires to a higher social standing. As an alternative to brute force and heredity, a social pyramid tries to be an aspiration. Success is the result of hard work and tenacity. Everyone can climb up the ladder to the top, rags to riches, log-cabin to White House, suburbia to billionaire mansion. This orthodoxy creates a highly competitive, innovative and productive society. But the ladders are steep and there is plenty of jostling, especially on the lower rungs. So the system is a source of resentment and frustration that can be severely neurotic.
 

The social pyramid achieves a consensus by propagating upward mobility. This is an illusion, because the only way to heighten a pyramid is to widen its base. Elevation is due to a new sub-structure that raises the existing levels. And the only way to elevate a social pyramid is to lift the lowest ranks with immigrants. The Romans tried it with slaves, but emancipations were rare so that new arrivals could not push up their predecessors. The original upward movement that had promoted plebeians to the leisure of bread and circus games could go no farther. (In the late empire, when the slave trade linked to conquests was reduced to a trickle, slaves became serfs and were tied to the land not a master.) At the end of the Middle Ages the decline of serfdom allowed a rural exodus that elevated commercial cities to greatness and power, and then America was discovered and subjected to an unprecedented human flow.

Having displaced and destroyed the native populations, the United States is a nation of immigrants. To the North they came from Europe, and those who survived moved upward and westward boosted by new arrivals. To the South they came from Africa as slaves. The North followed the expansive path to riches of Renaissance cities, while the South reproduced the stasis of imperial Rome, and went into sharp decline when the cross-Atlantic slave trade was interrupted by war and law. The pyramid grows and is elevated when its base can be lifted by a new under-layer, which excludes slavery. For social mobility to be more than just ups and downs there must be a constant inflow at the bottom of the pile. When the inflow is growing, each new base is wider than the precedent. When the inflow stabilises and contracts, in absolute or relative terms, the new bases are the same and then narrower than the preceding ones. And the lifting power of an expanding base is not the same as that of a shrinking one. So the structure loses its stability and a precipitous drop separates the top from the bottom.

As the elevating force of immigration dwindles and the income gap grows, discontent and doubts beset the Middle Classes. Both trends are inherent to the process, and the mystification of perpetual movement upwards must face that contradictory reality. The ideal is so ingrained, however, and is such an important element of social cohesion that evoking its long term ineffectiveness is not an option. Instead extraneous causes are blamed, Chauvinism is promoted, and then immigrants are accused of obstructing the system their predecessors have built. When the inflow is no longer strong enough to push everyone upwards, it just increases the existing base and presents the same stagnant situation as slavery.

A society that encourages rivalry in every domain rewards inequality, so winner takes all and runners-up are ignored. It glorifies the filthy rich and, at best, pities the grubby poor. It focuses attention on the 0.01%, and does its best to convince all the rest that that is the most desirable model. Competitiveness is instilled from childhood and woe to those who fail and are left behind. This cult of success is functional when many are getting a modest but increasing share. When social ascension falters and stops, aspiration turns to envy, the identification no longer holds and class confrontation is imminent. Social recessions favour the populist discourse of fascism, with its imposed uniformity, not necessarily in uniform, that represses anything that differs and stands out. Its proponents have always cuddled up with wealth, but what may look like a rampart against popular resentment, anger and revolt has always been a disaster for all. A social recession is again enveloping the world, and it is likely that reactionary forces will follow precedent in a twenty-first century version, without the goose-stepping and castor-oil.