So I was reading
this amusing article on Kenneth Cole's, uh, well I guess you could call it a "gaffe" earlier today when a line of thought came to mind.
Much hay has been made lately (and in the past decade, really) about how the rich have been getting richer and the rest of us have been getting the shaft and blah blah blah. While I agree with this sentiment in broad terms, the average man in the street really hasn't cared much. When you really get down to it, the average person just doesn't care enough about the issue yet.
Given that the income disparity is now as bad as it was in the 20's, it has struck me as a bit odd that people aren't angrier - or at least more active about this. But for the most part I was satisfied with what passes for the current arguments for why that is: People's survival isn't at stake as much. We do have something of a safety net, even if it is in tatters. There's enough food. etc. etc.
I did think that maybe that wasn't the whole story. As much as the rich love grasping as much as they can, so do the poor. While a wealthy man may buy off the government to grab what they can, the poor will band together to demand entitlement programs. Sure, you may point out that the neocon and post-neocon expansion of spending without matching tax increases is exactly that kind of stuff, but that misses the point: There's always been a broad range of poor folks that aren't merely satisfied with entitlement programs - they want to Stick It To The Man. For this bunch, higher taxes on the rich is like a benefit in and of itself.
So anyway, it occurred to me that the real reason we haven't seen more plebeian rage is simple: Because the rich have gotten much better at not reminding the poor how hopelessly out of touch they are. Sure, they're still prone to the occasional comment as linked above, but for the most part, they use their funds to buy precious Kane-esque seclusion and issue all statements through multiple layers of PR men. That's not to say the wealthy never used barriers or mouthpieces before, but the process has been vastly advanced in the intervening century.
So anyway, not much point here other than to wonder out loud what our "Let them eat cake" moment will look like and how bad things have to get before we get there.