Even most socialists seem much more disgusted and offended by racial prejudice than by class prejudice, even though the two are a lot more connected than you might think.
Isn’t hating someone because they’re poor just as bad as hating them because they’re black? True, occasionally a poor person can become middle class or rich, while a black person can’t get a race change, but you’re still judging someone for something that’s out of their control.
Not only that, you get a lot of the same arguments from classists you get from racists - that they have “inferior genes”, they’re lazy, they’re criminal, they only have themselves to blame, etc.
This is why I don’t like right libertarians and anarcho-capitalists. I view them as “class supremacists” and the same way the alt-right are racial supremacists.
Prejudice based on economic status or wealth is at least a little more justifiable than prejudice based on race, because people and the decisions they make have at least some influence on their economic status and wealth. And people have a lot of influence on their class. Note that economic status, wealth, and class are completely different things: Trump, for instance, has a very high economic status, but very low class, and possibly (though he’s made it hard to prove anything) negative wealth. Meanwhile, my family was middle class when I was growing up, despite being below the poverty line in income.
While racism is wrong, so is classism and ageism and other kinds of ‘isms’ too. But we rarely hear about these because people are so focused on racism, and rightly so, but why is this? Could it be that to really address such issues would threaten the interests of too may people who might have to make some sacrifices for them to be tackled?
Up to a point, but many people become trapped in a cycle of low paid jobs, lack of education and bad neighbourhoods. It’s true that people can escape bad conditions but often this is very difficult and they start from a much lower base than somebody who is born into a good affluent family environment with loving parents who have been educationally successful and take an interest in their kids’ development. Also, living in a good neighbourhood helps.
I’ve pointed out instances of classism on the board before, my comments don’t seem to interest anyone for whatever reason. I think these days classism is the number one issue that needs to be addressed if there is to be any peace in this country. Without addressing classism, racism will only ever be dealt with in a superficial manner.
I think part of the problem with classism is the vagueness of it all and also it runs up against much of the middle class ethos of striving and using your advantages to get ahead.
Classism is more acceptable that racism because class is a culture, an attitude and a set of values, all of which are a matter of personal choice and can change through education and life experience.
Political prejudice based on dividing people by race, gender, disability or anything else you cannot change is unacceptable because it is manifestly unfair and it supposes a persons politics are associated with something physical.
I was going to include religion in that list, but people can change religion.:dubious:
Can you find some example of explicitly socialist AND classist dogma? I’m not arguing that there isn’t inherent class prejudice in some affluent liberal circles but you’ll rarely see it as a codified ideology, particularly when it is “socialist” as opposed to “socially liberal.”
The idea that racists are poor and therefore liberals who hate racists actually hate poor people is bullshit logic.
I’d also add that your class is something less discernable than your race.
If you need to hide your class, you can change your outfit, you can try to speak differently (admittedly, this is not so easy, but it’s doable if you thought classism was your main obstacle).
Your perceived race however, is essentially always visible.
I think there is partial truth to this, but your post reeks of class prejudice to me. The culture, attitude and set of values arise out of a reaction to the environment. In other words, if you put any group of people in similar a similar environment then similar attitudes will arise.
An extreme example of this is a conversation I had with a friend once where she could not fathom working for a company just because I needed the stable income and needed to make that a priority for financial reasons. She looked down upon me a little for staying with a company whose “mission” I was not in love with, I looked down upon her a little for having a resume filled with numerous short stints at the type of places only people who did not really need to earn a living worked at. But in the end, my decisions would make sense for anyone in my situation and her decisions would make sense for anyone in her situation.
The historic example of extreme class prejudice that comes to mind is after the Russian revolution, members of the previous ruling class were deemed non-persons or former people and were systematically starved and persecuted.
Pol Pot in Cambodia did a similar thing, as did Mao during his Cultural Revolution.
The dismantling of class structures was a big part of Communist Manifesto.
There are enough grim examples from history to make modern day plutocrats nervous that one day their game will be up and they will be persecuted for their wealth and money.
These days class is a much broader concept and has a very tenuous connection with power and wealth.
“Class” is a nebulous concept and can be modified, and in the modern economy, things like education and training can become equalizers. In many societies, though not all, a person can be born into a lower class and yet through hard work and the right strokes of fortune rise out of that class.
Racism prevents this kind of class transformation from happening. If a person is condemned because of their race or ethnicity, then they are powerless to prevent whatever injury an abusive power might inflict upon them. But I’d also that scientific racism adds an even more sinister twist in which a racist might argue that a ‘lesser’ race is actually a not a race at all but rather a proto-hominid that is somehow not deserving of the same rights as man and furthermore unfit to survive compared with superior races. This is the stuff genocide is made of.
Without a doubt, a tyrannical ruler or majority can impose misery upon a class of humans for reasons as arbitrary as having the wrong ideology or being born into the wrong caste. However, I’d submit that racism probably lends itself more easily to mass murder than classicism.
Because you can change your class, and anyone can, in theory, be in any class, you can’t do the same with your race.
It’s more irrational to hate someone because of something they have zero ability to change than something they could, at least in theory, change if they really wanted to. I think hating someone for anything like this is really stupid, but hating someone because of the color of their skin is particularly stupid and is probably the most irrational of the prejudices, above religious prejudice or class prejudice by a fair bit…IMHO anyway.
Well, you get quite a bit of cross over between prejudices based on class and racism, to be sure, but consider…don’t you think it’s much worse to base your stupid prejudices such as the above on just the color of their skin or the ‘race’ they were born into than their economic situation? Granted, people are born into poverty and don’t have a choice there either, and sometimes there is no recourse, but often there is if they are willing to work hard enough. Put another way, if you are middle class or rich you could be from any race, color or creed, but if you are black or hispanic or asian you are always going to be black, hispanic or asian.
I think classicism is so entrenched because class is so interwoven with culture, and culture is saturated with values and rules of conduct. You’re not simply midde class if you make a close to median income. We tend to think you’re middle class if you do X, Y, and Z and value A, B, and C. From an early age most of us are taught to look down on people who don’t do or value the same things as us. It doesn’t take long for us to adopt proxy indicators–like class markers–to sniff out someone who has not been similarly “trained”.