Monday, May 5, 2008

Classism

Are we headed for a revival of socialist thought? The U.S. is not the only part of the western world where the middle class are becoming increasingly financially strained. Europe, it seems, is in a similar or possibly even more dire predicament [see NY Times article on European middle class].
It’s an age-old problem of classism; the wealth is controlled by the few, and the working middle class, which make up the majority of the population, are oppressed, unhappy and basically "just getting by." Why is this? Why has this been the pattern throughout the history of civilization? Are the middle class controlled by their own fear of losing what little they do have?
Or is it not a question of politics and economics that governs our way of life, so much as it is philosophy? Is all of the striving, all of the struggling to hold onto some small items what is making the middle class unhappy and dissatisfied? Does one truly have to own nothing in order to be free?
Interesting links:
see Texas A&M University Dept. of Philosophy: Stoicism, Buddhism, and the Meaning of Life

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