Class is Key

 The Upper Class Controls Our Country's Wealth

American progressives will continue to struggle until we regain the ability to see that the fundamental division in our society is class. Class outweighs race and gender in importance although they too are important. Our upper class owns most of the household wealth in United States. The wealthiest 10% own about 67% of the total household wealth of the country and about 87% of the shares of stock.

The top 1% own about 29% of our country’s household wealth, and they control much more because they control our major corporations.  That 1% is our country’s oligarchy. They are the people who can make 7-figure gifts to political causes and political candidates. Because of their wealth, the members of this class have a great deal of political influence. We can see that influence in the policies of our current administration. Pres. Trump claims to speak for working Americans against a shadowy elite, but his signature tariffs are designed primarily to shift the tax burden from the wealthy to working Americans.

The Patrimonial Middle Class

Below the upper class is the group that Thomas Picketty has called the patrimonial middle class. This class includes about 40% of the population. It owns a sizable share of our country’s household wealth, but because the class is so big, its members own much less individually than do the members of the upper class. Members of this class dominate the Democratic Party and set the agenda for American progressives. Other members are staunch Republicans This is the class that most needs to revive its ability to see the importance of class in American politics.

The Working Class

Below the patrimonial middle class lies 50% of the population who own almost nothing. Lacking wealth, the members of this class depend entirely on their weekly or monthly earnings and on their employers for health insurance. Individual members of this class have little political influence. However, the size of this class and the tools of the internet can give this class political influence when it is organized and has leadership. The fund-raising success of Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez is an example.

Race and Gender

There are other important divisions besides class. Race is an important divider, and so is gender. Black people and women have struggled long and hard to obtain equality with white men, and those struggles are still going on. They have been extremely important in the United States for more than a century. In fact, they have been so important that they have obscured the importance of class differences in the minds of many American progressives.

I do not mean to say that we should ignore the needs of women or black people. Instead, we need to see that working Americans can rise together.  The struggle should not be seen as a struggle between working men and working women or between white workers and black workers. Instead, we need to remember who the real enemy is and focus on demands for policies that will help us all. Things like affordable childcare, affordable healthcare and baby bonds will help all working families and also narrow the wealth gaps between white people and black people and between men and women. Even the fight over abortion can be framed as a fight to liberate working families from the crushing costs of raising unwanted children.

Regaining a Progressive Focus on Class

The radical right loves to use the struggles over race and gender to divide progressives. If we are fighting among ourselves over issues like affirmative action at Ivy League universities, whether or not black people should be paid reparations, we are not uniting to demand a decent national healthcare system, free post-secondary education or affordable childcare. When we repeat endlessly that our country is run by old white men, we fail to notice that our pockets are being picked by rich people. It is true that many of those rich people are old white men but not all of them. Miriam Adelson is real, and so is Alex Karp. The upper class is mostly white, but that is not its defining characteristic. Its defining characteristic is that it controls the bulk of our national wealth and through that control is able to set the policy priorities of our government. We progressives will struggle until we regain our ability to see this basic fact.