Class Dismissed
By Max Borders

Class analysis is back. Well, it never left, really. It just got overshadowed. But far more than race or sex, class dynamics are potent. And unhealthy class dynamics thrive in zero-sum power politics.

[T]here is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
—Thomas Jefferson

John Michael Greer offers a heuristic far more fruitful than any social justice shibboleths. It requires dividing the United States—perhaps other democracies—into four fundamental classes. First, we consider their relative position, incentives, culture, and adversaries. Then, we can see how the dynamics play out.

The four classes are:

1. Investor Class

2. Salary Class

3. Wage Class

4. Welfare Class

In other words, we might invoke class analysis—not through the Marxian lens, but rather a prism that reveals the interplay of interests among the four groups. It might reveal how posturing and resource jockeying roils in the dying days of the Republic.