Graduates, meet Oligarchy, your new overlord

Graduates, meet Oligarchy, your new overlord

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Those of you with practical degrees have probably never heard of an oligarchy. Let me define it for you. It is a society in which power and wealth belong to a privileged few, but its most telling feature is the lack of a large and robust middle class.
The middle-class thing is what's most important. A person could argue that power and wealth are always concentrated among a privileged few. What was it George Orwell said in "Animal Farm" — all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others?
The America in which I grew up was distinguished by a massive and powerful middle class. The middle class drove the country.
That has changed. The middle class is shrinking. People fall out of it every day.
I won't bother you with theories about why this is happening. I suspect much of it has to do with globalization and the transfer of manufacturing jobs to lower-cost countries.
Some of you will be fortunate and will become functionaries in the oligarchy. Maybe you will be accountants or engineers. But eventually — and probably sooner rather than later — you will become obsolete and will fall out of the middle class.
Many of you, particularly those of you with liberal arts degrees, will head directly into the growing underclass.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/bill-mcclellan/graduates-meet-oligarchy-your-new-overlord/article_60b73f5d-2b18-536e-bb42-e01b1cfe5cf3.html#ixzz1tZOb6qlP