The chief trouble is this: People think they will be Rich one day

[Blackburn]

Over the years I've talked to many a co-worker, many an average a person about the inequities in the system we live in.

The chief belief of the ignorant is this: They believe the way to rid themselves of their troubles is that they will work hard and become rich one day. They will be the Slave Master.

No one ever thinks of changing the system. The system is never questioned. I was told by one co-worker in my last job: That's just the game, that's just the way it is.

I think this is the number one problem stopping progress/revolution.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Over the years I've talked to many a co-worker, many an average a person about the inequities in the system we live in.

The chief belief of the ignorant is this: They believe the way to rid themselves of their troubles is that they will work hard and become rich one day. They will be the Slave Master.

No one ever thinks of changing the system. The system is never questioned. I was told by one co-worker in my last job: That's just the game, that's just the way it is.

I think this is the number one problem stopping progress/revolution.

In opinion polls, this was supposedly a common belief in the US - according to opinion polls now, it is rapidly becoming a broken belief.

Essentially what it comes down to in my opinion is that if people do not think there is any other possible alternative to the current social status-quo, then more likly than not, people who are poor or working class or from some oppressed group will seek to find (or simply hope to attain) the best position within the available situation:


That's just the game, that's just the way it is.

Hell even during slavery in the US, there were "house slaves" who had solidarity with their masters rather than with fellow slaves because having nice clothes, a room in a mansion, and to be treated somewhat like a full person is seemingly much better than working in the field and living in slave quarters.

It's the effect of ruling class ideas that we are surrounded with. All ruling classes have tried to present themselves as the natural order that is unchanging. In feudalism the system was picked by God and as unchanging as solid as the position of the planets in the heavens (so they thought). In capitalism there have been various explanations from it's "human nature" to it's the "end of history" and ideology. The wisdom of the "invisible hand" and logic of the markets is treated like Newtonian laws of nature.

But these ideas are just as false as thinking that the planets revolve around the earth and when cracks appear in these ideas, consciousness changes fast. Egyptians were thought to be the least likely people to revolt in the middle east - it was their "nature" to grin and bear it, but that came crumbling down pretty damn fast.