The Rich Don't Always Win

Can a rich family end up poor? It happened in The Senator and the Socialite; the Bruce family started out rich in the 1800’s, ended up on welfare in the 1940’s. They were landowners with no skills or special talent, and their money ran out after 80 years. Their rich and powerful friends deserted them, and the jobs that they’d gotten thanks to social class dried up. Today their descendants are doctors, lawyers, and teachers.  They’re now “regular” people. But keep in minds that the courts look at the “gentle” folk differently than the lower classes.

Sam Pizzigati discusses the history of class warfare in the USA, starting with the muckracking years of the late 1800’s, and devotes half the book to the New Deal. But the 1950’s don’t get much coverage, and that was an era where working class families could finally own houses. Perhaps it was a time of greater equality? The New Deal may very well have been a response to the wealthy families messing around with free enterprise, but what about the middle class politicians who insisted on useless tariffs? We blame the 

Depression on the stock market, but the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs are now known to have made it worse.

I do fault the author for missing a vital point; the rich do often win in the USA! Look at Michael Moore’s Roger & Me as an example. When the auto plants in Michigan closed, the owner simply packed up and left. He wouldn’t lose his home, because his company’s loans weren’t borrowed against it. If that’s not a convincing example, there’s the pharmaceutical magnate who persuaded Connecticut to let him demolish homes through “eminent domain.”