# Will the people ever rise again? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2008, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905 "2008-12-19T14:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/41 "2008-12-20T16:29:58Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What written history has shown _me_ is that when violent means are used to overthrow a government, a lot of innocents get the shaft, then the most violent amongst the revolutionists usually becomes the leader. OK, so where do Washington and Jefferson, for example, fit into that paradigm? > [@](#): > > _What amuses me about this is that those who advocate violent revolution automatically assume that the innocent bystanders killed will be someone else, and that the revolutionists that eventually come out on top will be someone they approve of._ Whereas you aren’t automatically assuming anything about those who hold revolutionary politics. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > _Marx was a student of history_ Exactly, and yet he still came to the conclusion that capitalism should be overthrown by force. So how does that fit in with your previous assertion that revolutionaries act in complete ignorance of written history? ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/42 "2008-12-20T16:44:22Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What written history has shown _me_ is that when violent means are used to overthrow a government, a lot of innocents get the shaft, then the most violent amongst the revolutionists usually becomes the leader. So you’re saying that Washington was the most violent? ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/43 "2008-12-20T16:47:12Z")
Don’t forget Jefferson. Dude was a homicidal maniac. Or John Adams, with the Sedition Act and all. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/44 "2008-12-20T16:50:43Z")
> [@Burton](#): > > What would it take for Americans to repudiate those in power and start from scratch again through an armed conflict? A wealthy and organized bourgoisie who is upset that the top levels of the status quo are closed to them. Just like the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/45 "2008-12-20T16:52:37Z")
Who in the heck would close it off? They’re already up there. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/46 "2008-12-20T16:53:02Z")
I had lunch with an old professor of mine yesterday and this came up. I said it would happen when the average man wants meat and he has to go shoot it, and when he wants vegetables he has to grow them. Probably sometime between 100 years from now and never, barring unforeseen circumstances like a disease or a meteor that decimates the population. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/47 "2008-12-20T16:55:15Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > OK, so where do Washington and Jefferson, for example, fit into that paradigm? The American Revolution wasn’t a revolution; it was a rebellion or secession. It wasn’t trying to overthrow the British government, just to break away from it. Same thing with our so-called Civil War, except in that case it didn’t work. Still, plenty of innocents died during the American Revolution; that happens in any war. But the wholesale, intentional slaughter that has accompanied so many revolutions, such as the French, the Russian, and the Iranian, did not happen here precisely because it was a rebellion rather than a revolution; there was no former government power structure to put down. The Crown loyalists either got out or laid low. There just wasn’t the kind of rage that accompanies a revolution, and America won its independence by making it too expensive for Britain to find it worth continuing - you typically don’t get that outcome with a revolution. So the simple answer is, Washington and Jefferson don’t fit within that paradigm, nor should they need to. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/48 "2008-12-20T16:57:09Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > So you’re saying that Washington was the most violent? Please note the use of the word “usually”, and try to take into account 1. the fact that the winners get to write the history books, and a shitload of people got the shaft in our push for freedom, and 2. the United States was a great, _but very rare_, exception to my point. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/49 "2008-12-20T17:06:06Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > I can’t remember the last time a country came apart peacefully. Some sort of violent conflict occurred to precipitate it, or occurred after the initial fragmentation. Countries do not last forever, and they don’t break up without a fight. Why should we be any different? [Czechoslovakia “came apart peacefully” in 1993.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_divorce) Though perhaps that is not the kind of thing you’re talking about. England’s [Glorious Revolution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_revolution) was bloodless – but the winners had to fight later to keep it. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/50 "2008-12-20T17:13:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Czechoslovakia “came apart peacefully” in 1993.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_divorce) Though perhaps that is not the kind of thing you’re talking about. Also, history teems with examples of nation-states that have been conquered or destroyed from the outside. Revolution is not inevitable. Aside from all the examples in Eurasia, look at the Native American nations. They were all pretty much destroyed from the outside, by disease, conquest, and assimilation. It wasn’t peaceful, but it wasn’t a revolution either. The US may eventually fall to revolution. It may be conquered. Or it may just ultimately be rendered irrelevant, if we ever reach a point where the world is in effect a single nation. The only certainty is that eventually, it will not exist anymore. But eventually could mean centuries or millenia from now. It could also mean next week, but I wouldn’t put any money on it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/51 "2008-12-20T17:25:02Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Who in the heck would close it off? They’re already up there. Exactly. Over the past 70 years or so, the American upper-middle and upper classes have gradually negotiated a merger into a single, culturally homogeneous white overclass while nobody (including themselves!) was watching. From [_The Next American Nation,_](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684825031/sr=8-1/qid=1151677963/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8508178-8162241?ie=UTF8) by Michael Lind: > [@](#): > > Understanding the white overclass requires revising the most common misconceptions about class. The discussion of social class has been confused for generations by Marxist thinkers, who made the mistake of completely identifying class with economic function. Like the Marxists, old-fashioned American liberal pluralists tend to misunderstand class. What they refer to as class is typically not a social class at all, but a mere occupational or income category, such as service-sector workers or millionaires. Meanwhile, the New Left which came to prominence in the sixties has tended to drop the idea of class altogether, in favor of race and gender. . . . In recent years, conservative ideologues have added further confusion by defining political factions and lifestyle subcultures as classes. . . . > > In order to think about class in twenty-first century America, we must first clear our minds of these Marxist, liberal, New Left, and conservative definitions of class, and return to the older notion of class found in classical and European political thought from Aristotle to Montesquieu. > > A class is a group of families, united by intermarriage and a common subculture, whose members tend to predominate in certain professions and political offices, generation after generation. Note that the class – the group of similar families – has an existence independent of the offices which its members tend to hold. **Indeed, we cannot talk intelligently about class unless we make a distinction between a social class and a mere institutional elite. Those who talk about “the political class” or, with C. Wright Mills, about “the power elite,” are confusing two very different things. Every modern society, even the most perfectly egalitarian, will have an institutional elite – top civilian politicians, military officers, judges, diplomats, financial and industrial executives, publishers, editors and leading intellectuals, clerical leaders, and so on. The subject of class is raised only when you examine the social origins of the particular individuals who hold office in the institutional elite or elites. Learning the organization of judicial offices in a country tells you nothing about class. However, if you find out that most of the judges tend to come from old-money families in a particular region of that country, and that most attended one of half a dozen schools, then you have learned something important about that country’s class system.** > > The United States at the end of the twentieth century has both an institutional elite and a dominant social class. The institutional elite is composed of upper-level officials in the federal and state governments, plus executives and professionals in the concentrated private sector and foundation and university executives (low-level government officials and small business owners are not part of the institutional elite). Almost all of the members of the American institutional elite also happen to be members of a single social class: the white overclass. To put it another way, the labor pool from which most elite positions are filled is the white overclass. The overlap is not complete. Though most members of the institutional elite belong to the white overclass, most members of the white overclass are not part of the institutional elite (since the overclass greatly outnumbers the elite); and – though this is uncommon – a person can become a high-ranking politician, military officer, judge, CEO, foundation president, or university president in the United States without having been born into the white overclass. It is possible to imagine a United States in which most members of the institutional elite did not have similar class origins. But that is not the country in which we live. > > **. . . The white overclass is the child of the former Northeastern Protestant establishment, produced by marriage (not only figurative but literal) with the upwardly mobile descendants of turn-of-the-century European immigrants and white Southerners and Westerners.** Unlike the Northeastern establishment . . . this relatively new and still evolving political and social oligarchy is not identified with any particular region of the country (though it is concentrated in East and West Coast metropolitan regions). Nor does the white overclass dominate other sections through local, surrogate establishments, as the Northeastern establishment once did. Rather, overclass Americans are found in the higher suburbs of every major metropolitan area, North and South, coastal and inland. Unlike the sectional elites of the past, members of the white overclass are not even identified with the regions in which they happen (temporarily) to live. The white overclass, homogeneous and nomadic, is the first truly national upper class in American history. > > **The white overclass is the product, not merely of the amalgamation of Anglo- and Euro-Americans, but of the fusion of the rentier and managerial-professional classes.** This blurring of the upper and upper-middle strata is a relatively new development in the United States. In earlier generations, there were distinct landowning and rentier classes, with their own lifestyles and institutions – cotillions, seasons spent in the country, and the like. The elaborate rituals that governed upper-class life, such as dressing for dinner, were designed to conspicuously display wealth, including a wealth of leisure time. That was a long time ago. There is a class, or rather a category, of the celebrity rich, and there are still pockets of old-fashioned rentiers in the U.S. – in Virginia, there are still planters who do not work and who hunt foxes with hounds – but these subcultures are detached from the summits of power. Members of the upper class who want to make a mark in the world tend to adopt the style of life and dress and speech of the managerial-professional elite. Even though they do not have to, most members of the small hereditary upper class go to college and get executive or professional jobs, and work, or at least pretend to. Instead of serving as a model for well-to-do executives and lawyers and investment bankers, the hereditary segment of the American overclass conforms to the segment immediately below it, the credentialed upper middle class. > > . . . The composition of student bodies at Ivy League schools is a good surrogate for the composition of the white overclass. If you factor out black and Hispanic students admitted under affirmative action programs, you are left with a student body that is disproportionately of British or German-Scandinavian Protestant and European Jewish descent. There are relatively few evangelical Protestants and Catholics in the overclass, despite their significant numbers in the general population. If you are Episcopalian or Jewish, have a graduate or professional degree from an expensive university, work in a large downtown office building in an East or West Coast metropolis, watch MacNeil/Lehrer on PBS, and are saving for a vacation in London or Paris, you are a card-carrying member of the white overclass, even if your salary is not very impressive. If you are Methodist, Baptist or Catholic, have a B.A. from a state university, work in or for a small business or for a career government service, watch the Nashville Network on cable, and are saving for a vacation in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Branson, Missouri, or Orlando, Florida (Disneyworld), you are probably not a member of the white overclass – no matter how much money you make. > > Although there are residual religious and ethnic differences among members of the white overclass, these are minor compared to what they have in common. There is, for example, a common white overclass accent, which is more or less identical in corporate boardrooms from one end of the continent to another – the “NBC standard,” which is the equivalent of BBC English or Britain’s Received Pronunciation (RP). As formerly distinct local elites have fused into a single national ruling class equally at home in New York and Texas and California, this accent has become the badge of elite status. In order to advance in overclass circles in America, a white American has to suppress any regional or ethnic dialect, whether it be a Southern drawl or a Boston honk or Brooklynese, and learn to speak this flat, clipped, rather nasal version of English. . . . > > . . . The overclass eats pate and imported cheeses; the middle class eats peanut butter and Velveeta. The overclass sips wine; the middle class drinks beer. The overclass plays squash and tennis; the middle class plays pool and bowls (both golf, but the middle class does so at second-tier country clubs and public courses). The overclass jogs; the middle class does not. . . . These are cliches, but they are a better guide to the real class structure in the United States than income categories in the census or pseudoscientific sociological measures like the SES (socioeconomic survey). N.B.: Barack Hussein Obama has won himself the highest office in the American institutional elite. That does **not,** in and of itself, threaten the existence nor the power of the white overclass. A real revolution would. Nor is there any significant threat American society will break up along **regional** lines, like the Balkans. From the same book: > [@](#): > > The chief danger confronting the twenty-first century United States is not Balkanization [fragmentation of society along ethnic lines] but what might be called Brazilianization. By Brazilianization I mean not the separation of cultures by race, but the separation of races by class. As in Brazil, a common American culture could be indefinitely compatible with a blurry, informal caste system in which most of those at the top of the social hierarchy are white, and most brown and black Americans are on the bottom – _forever._ Behind all the boosterish talk about the wonders of the new American rainbow is the reality of enduring racial division by class, something that multicultural education initiatives and racial preference policies do not begin to address. > > In the absence of sustained popular pressure from below or concern about America’s international status, the white overclass has no incentive to combat Brazilianization in the United States. For one thing, any serious effort to reduce racial separation by class would inevitably mean higher taxes on the affluent – not just the rich, but the politically powerful upper-middle class. What is more, the dominance of the white oligarchy in American politics is strengthened by the emergent dynamics of a polarized society. In a more homogeneous society, the increasing concentration of wealth and power at the top might produce a populist reaction by the majority. But in a society like that of present-day America where a small, homogeneous oligarchy confronts a diverse population that shares a common national culture but remains divided along racial lines, the position of the outnumbered elite can be very secure. This is because the resentments caused by economic decline are likely to be expressed as hostility between the groups at the bottom, rather than as a rebellion against the top. In the Los Angeles riot, black, Hispanic, and white rioters turned on Korean middlemen, rather than march on Beverly Hills. And Obama’s election portends no serious threat to **that,** either. It is a revolutionary development – but only in the sense FDR’s election in 1932 was revolutionary. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/52 "2008-12-20T17:25:07Z")
[http://carnival-of-anarchy.blogspot.com/2008/01/smedley-butler-and-business-plot.html](http://carnival-of-anarchy.blogspot.com/2008/01/smedley-butler-and-business-plot.html) In1933 there was a plot to take over the government by the business leaders. How serious a plot, can be debated . In 1967 there were riots in the streets. I was in a Detroit suburb and cops and national guard troops with rifles forcibly closed everything down. That was fueled by the ignoring of the blacks problems. Our economy is on a huge downslope. At what point does it get serious enough to act as an organizing agent. All we have to do is toss more and more middleclass people in the street to find out. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/53 "2008-12-20T17:34:19Z")
> [@Oy](#): > > The American Revolution wasn’t a revolution; it was a rebellion or secession. It wasn’t trying to overthrow the British government, just to break away from it. Irving Kristol, in his essay, “The American Revolution as a Successful Revolution,” once expressed disagreement with that, pointing out that while Washington was engaging the Redcoats, there was simultaneously a real and partially successful (and, in Kristol’s views **at that time,** highly desirable) grassroots class struggle and social revolution going on **within** the colonial population. He may have changed his views since then. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/54 "2008-12-20T18:21:57Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Irving Kristol, in his essay, “The American Revolution as a Successful Revolution,” once expressed disagreement with that, pointing out that while Washington was engaging the Redcoats, there was simultaneously a real and partially successful (and, in Kristol’s views **at that time,** highly desirable) grassroots class struggle and social revolution going on **within** the colonial population. > > He may have changed his views since then. The American Revolution was a rebellion a secession and a revolution. The reason it was a revolution is because it changed the way people govern themselves in a profound way. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/55 "2008-12-20T18:28:40Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Who in the heck would close it off? They’re already up there. That’s right. So there won’t be one. All governmental systems are always aristocracies because some people are smarter than others. Illiterate peasants don’t make successful revolutionaries in the modern era. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/56 "2008-12-20T18:39:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Irving Kristol, in his essay, “The American Revolution as a Successful Revolution,” once expressed disagreement with that, pointing out that while Washington was engaging the Redcoats, there was simultaneously a real and partially successful (and, in Kristol’s views **at that time,** highly desirable) grassroots class struggle and social revolution going on **within** the colonial population. > > He may have changed his views since then. The guys who started out on top in the colonies ended up on top in the United States. Almost all of the “founders” were elites to begin with, educationally if not financially. I’ve often wondered how much our rebellion was initially motivated by picque on the part of elite colonials who visited England and were treated as provincial bumpkins. Wrt your earlier post, I don’t think there’s an overclass so much as a poor and uneducated underclass, what I call the hereditary poor. If your parents are both poor and uneducated, and particularly if you also live in a neighborhood where these conditions prevail, the chances of your being anything but poor and uneducated yourself are very small. That said, there’s also certainly a group of people who, by their social contacts, virtually ensure the success of their children; the Bush sons are certainly strong examples of this. But the wealth of one generation can largely buy into that class for the next; money buys access and favor regardless of ancestry, race, religion, or geography, because in our society, wealth is a signifier of worth - if so and so is rich, s/he must be worth talking to, even if they’re tacky (i.e. don’t share the upper class tastes and accent as outlined by Lind). Their children will usually acquire those upper class tastes and accent, but probably won’t change their religion or name and certainly won’t change their ancestry. This is a change from the first half of the twentieth century (when it was not uncommon to change name and/or religion for success-driven reasons), but then, so is the inclusion of European Jews and the children of turn of the century immigrants. But revolution is unlikely to come from the hereditary poor, although rioting can, and any revolution would recruit its cannon fodder from this group. Since upward mobility is quite possible for anyone who gets an education or makes serious money, revolt is unlikely until and unless people who have the potential for wealth or status start feeling that their options are closed off. As others have mentioned, this is most likely if we see a major economic depression. The hereditary poor, though they tend to feel their options are closed off, seem to have coped not by revolution, but by creating a cannabalistic shadow society in which money and, more importantly, status can be acquired by various illegal activities, such as drug sales and gang-warfare. The election of Barack Obama may bring some of the next generation back into the mainstream, as they realize that the biracial son of a single mother on welfare can nonetheless make it to the top. But I don’t think this makes revolution more likely; if anything, it makes it less likely. The better people view their chances for success within a society, the less likely it is that they will revolt against that society. Again, the American Revolution doesn’t qualify, as it was a breakaway, rather than a true revolution. [QUOTE=mswas] The American Revolution was a rebellion a secession and a revolution. The reason it was a revolution is because it changed the way people govern themselves in a profound way. [/QUOTE] The American Revolution certainly was revolutionary in that respect, but it was not a revolution. No one was overthrown, nor was there an attempt to overthrow anyone. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/57 "2008-12-20T18:46:49Z")
The idea that the best and the brightest are in charge is an illusion. The government is run by a group of people who set up ways to exclude the unwashed masses. Ivy League schools admit the carefully selected along with the legacies who get to run the government. They populate the upper echelons of our government . Do you really believe other colleges are graduating lesser students? If you were around back in the black power days ,you would have seen some very bright organizers who learned about life on the streets and in jail. There are some very bright people who live a life of limited opportunity ,who can rally the people if the circumstances demand it. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/58 "2008-12-20T18:58:44Z")
People don’t need to be overthrown in order for a revolution to occur. Systems can be overthrown and it’s still just as revolutionary. The American Revolution overthrew a system in which, for example, the head of state was hereditary and not democratically elected and in which there was a state-supported religion. For the times, those measures were drastically revolutionary and the overthrow of that system constituted a revolution. I took a fairly careful look at the excerpt you quoted from Lind, **BG** , and I have to say he’s got no grasp of what constitutes class in this country. Class isn’t a set of lifestyle choices and job opportunities. Where does he think those old planters in Virginia who go hunting with the hounds got their family money in the first place? Here’s a hint: that source of income dried up rather quickly between 1863 and 1865. Simply put, class is indeed economic function - based on whether your income is drawn from your own ability to perform work or from others’. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/59 "2008-12-20T19:13:04Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > People don’t need to be overthrown in order for a revolution to occur. Systems can be overthrown and it’s still just as revolutionary. The American Revolution overthrew a system in which, for example, the head of state was hereditary and not democratically elected and in which there was a state-supported religion. For the times, those measures were drastically revolutionary and the overthrow of that system constituted a revolution. If you’re using revolution in the same sense as “The Technology Revolution,” then this may be true (although I can make a pretty good case for the fact that England was by then mostly parliamentary, and freedom of religion was already pretty much in place in the colonies - John Locke had written almost a hundred years earlier, and the ideas weren’t new). But in the military sense, a revolution is a war intended to overthrow and replace the current government, whether or not it is successful. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/60 "2008-12-20T19:13:55Z")
> [@Oy](#): > > Wrt your earlier post, I don’t think there’s an overclass so much as a poor and uneducated underclass, what I call the hereditary poor. Oh, both exist – as do several classes between them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905.md?page=4)