MSNBC: 'Rags To Riches' A Hollywood Myth

[Book O'Dead]

Even capitalists can't help exploding their own myths:

http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/09/12645408-rags-to-riches-thats-hollywood-fiction-study-finds?lite

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Moved to Politics

[Gman]

And in other news, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

[Book O'Dead]

And in other news, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Hey, not everyone knows that the 'rags to riches' belief is a myth. So try not to act so blase about it, 'kay?

[Permanent Revolutionary]

This myth perpetuates much of western society, so I'll have to agree with BoD. This is not an issue to be taking lightly.

But one can hardly blame Hollywood. Filmmakers almost always want a happy ending, so we won't be seeing films about someone who risks everything, and ends up in the gutter (unless he's/she's a baddie)

[¿Que?]

Actually, Gman has a point. I don't think a single user on revleft, except for maybe a few in OI believe in the rags to riches myth. What's interesting, though, is how the article talks about an empirical study confirming what many here already believed. However, I would argue that there are probably numerous studies already which suggest the same thing.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

So we must only discuss topics and viewpoints which the demographic of RevLeft agrees with?
Cool story, bro.

[¿Que?]

So we must only discuss topics and viewpoints which the demographic of RevLeft agrees with?
Cool story, bro.
Yeah, that's totally what I was arguing.:rolleyes:

[Permanent Revolutionary]

What's your point of being Captain Obvious, then?

[¿Que?]

What's your point of being Captain Obvious, then?
I don't even know what you're trying to say here. Are you asking me what the point of my comment was?

I guess if that's the case, I was saying that Gman has a point in expressing that this is not really news to anyone here on revleft. However, there is value in the study as it empirically confirms what many people here already knew or believed.

Is that a little clearer for you?

[Permanent Revolutionary]

What is the point of pointing out that this is not news?

This is a good occasion for discussing why this myth is so common in Europe and America, so why derail it with pointless nitpicking?

[¿Que?]

What is the point of pointing out that this is not news?

This is a good occasion for discussing why this myth is so common in Europe and America, so why derail it with pointless nitpicking?
Well, if we are discussing why this myth is so common, doesn't it serve our purpose to consider those who do not hold such views?

Gman made a valid point. Get over it. It was, to be sure, condescending and not constructive in the way he did it, and I would respect you a lot more if you had actually made that argument. But you didn't. Instead, you're arguing that we shouldn't even consider the fact that everyone on revleft already believed this to be true? I find that piece of information quite relevant to this discussion, but if you are too dense to see why, then obviously you have very little to contribute to the discussion in the first place.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

No, I did not say that we should not consider the fact that most, if not all, users on RevLeft agreed with the conclusion.
What I was saying, was that it was pointless to point it out, because we all know that already. We have enough problems on these boards by this kind of one-upmanship.

[¿Que?]

No, I did not say that we should not consider the fact that most, if not all, users on RevLeft agreed with the conclusion.
What I was saying, was that it was pointless to point it out, because we all know that already. We have enough problems on these boards by this kind of one-upmanship.
So we're supposed to consider it, but not mention it? You have a really strange way of discussing things. Generally, when discussing things, and bringing up a topic for consideration, it usually is a good idea to mention the topic you want to consider in the discussion. Your position is becoming more and more untenable, I'd suggest you abandon ship.

[Book O'Dead]

So we're supposed to consider it, but not mention it? You have a really strange way of discussing things. Generally, when discussing things, and bringing up a topic for consideration, it usually is a good idea to mention the topic you want to consider in the discussion. Your position is becoming more and more untenable, I'd suggest you abandon ship.

WTF!?! Why is everybody a boss all of a sudden? "Do this, do that; don't do this, don't do that!"

I'm getting sick of seeing and experiencing this noxious authoritarian streak in Revleft!

[¿Que?]

WTF!?! Why is everybody a boss all of a sudden? "Do this, do that; don't do this, don't do that!"

I'm getting sick of seeing and experiencing this noxious authoritarian streak in Revleft!
Who's being authoritarian here? Oyggjaframi and now you are the one's trying to silence differing opinions. What exactly have I said that is in any way authoritarian?

[Revolution starts with U]

And in other news, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

That's a myth too ;)

[Hexen]

"Rags to Riches" is part of the capitalist paradigm that is reflected in films made in Hollywood.

Or it's simply capitalist propaganda that is saying "See anybody can become rich"...

[Book O'Dead]

Who's being authoritarian here? Oyggjaframi and now you are the one's trying to silence differing opinions. What exactly have I said that is in any way authoritarian?

You're right. I overreacted. I apologize.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

Who's being authoritarian here? Oyggjaframi and now you are the one's trying to silence differing opinions. What exactly have I said that is in any way authoritarian?

For god's sake, man get your head out of your ass.

I'm not trying to "silence" anyone, what I did was pointing out what Gman said was pointless, and you had to come and make a fuzz.

Could we please get on discussing the topic at hand, please?

[Robocommie]

Oh Jesus, first page and there's already a meta-argument about the thread.

You know what this puts me in mind of though; that whole 54 Percent tumblr thing that came out after OWS started up with the 99% rhetoric. The shit they posted was shocking for the degree they didn't expect better conditions for themselves. They list off the fact that they work multiple jobs just to barely break even, or work one single job extra hard, and yet feel nothing but contempt for people who find their situation oppressive, and tell them to "suck it up." The most unbelievable example I ever saw was a girl who told a story about her immigrant factory worker father who found out he had a malignant tumor which would slowly kill him, but getting treatment would mean not being able to work - she held this up not as an example of the horrific inhumanities of the system, but of her own father's noble heroism in being the working man struggling against all odds.

Some of these people are just class aliens who fail to see the difference between the nature of their own labor (which they own) from the truly exploitative labor of the proletariat. Others are proletarian Uncle Toms, who seem to feel they have true merit by enduring diminishing living conditions and diminishing wages without complaining or trying to fight for something better.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

Found this on TheChive. Some of it rings true:
http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/inspirational-quotes-2.jpg?w=500&h=353

[RebelDog]

Long ago my uncle told his family he had enough of being poor and was moving to London to make his fortune. He borrowed money to buy an old handcart and went round collecting all the used papers people didn't want anymore. That was over 50 years ago. Do you know what he is worth now? Fuck all! And he still owes the money for the handcart!

[Comrade Samuel]

Oh Jesus, first page and there's already a meta-argument about the thread.

You know what this puts me in mind of though; that whole 54 Percent tumblr thing that came out after OWS started up with the 99% rhetoric. The shit they posted was shocking for the degree they didn't expect better conditions for themselves. They list off the fact that they work multiple jobs just to barely break even, or work one single job extra hard, and yet feel nothing but contempt for people who find their situation oppressive, and tell them to "suck it up." The most unbelievable example I ever saw was a girl who told a story about her immigrant factory worker father who found out he had a malignant tumor which would slowly kill him, but getting treatment would mean not being able to work - she held this up not as an example of the horrific inhumanities of the system, but of her own father's noble heroism in being the working man struggling against all odds.




Some of these people are just class aliens who fail to see the difference between the nature of their own labor (which they own) from the truly exploitative labor of the proletariat. Others are proletarian Uncle Toms, who seem to feel they have true merit by enduring diminishing living conditions and diminishing wages without complaining or trying to fight for something better.

Well there's revleft for you: we get news that validates our beliefs so to keep the perpetually pissed-off train on its tracks we just sorta start an argument on how one user's interpretation of the news is different or somehow lesser than another's.

I for one see this news as a very good thing, hearing the same arguments out of the right-wing capitalists about "how easy it is to move up in this country if you work hard enough" are alot easier to counter when there is hard scientific evidence telling otherwise (especially when this research comes from their very own propaganda nozzle). I really feel as though with each passing month since this world-wide recession has started that the majority is not only sliding further and further left in small incriminate but much to my surprise the rich and powerful seem to deal with it less with compromise and more with tear gas and it's stories like this that get more and more people, not only in America but in the world thinking about the short comings of our supposedly perfect capitalist system.

[Dumb]

I think the OP pointed out rather clearly what makes this interesting: we're seeing rumblings of this realization even within pro-capitalist circles.

[The Intransigent Faction]

That's nothing new....Studies that provide a lot of evidence which explodes capitalist myths have been done before, and will be done again. Denying this stuff is a dangerous game that wouldn't work forever. "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." MSNBC may not deny the reality about "rags to riches", but you can bet your life that they won't follow this through to the conclusion that the system cannot be simply tweaked to be made fair.

What really matters, then, is what the experiences of the workers themselves have shown them. I think that anyone who's been paying attention, and who's been adversely effected by the economic crisis of recent years, knows that one can work hard and for long hours and still end up in poverty or deeply in debt. This is especially true for anyone who actually considers things outside of the U.S. border---how many hours for how little pay have sweatshop workers worked, and how often have they gone on to build an immense fortune?

So, yeah, I don't mean to get involved in nitpicking, but Gman is right. Anyone looking at the world around them doesn't need the bourgeois media to tell them that the idea that "if you just work hard, you'll succeed" is a myth. It takes some serious willful blindness to deny this reality.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

So, yeah, I don't mean to get involved in nitpicking, but Gman is right. Anyone looking at the world around them doesn't need the bourgeois media to tell them that the idea that "if you just work hard, you'll succeed" is a myth. It takes some serious willful blindness to deny this reality.

You forget the power of years of bourgeoisie media indoctrination. We may all, on this forum, take this fact as a given, but I assure you that not all working people do.

[The Intransigent Faction]

You forget the power of years of bourgeoisie media indoctrination. We may all, on this forum, take this fact as a given, but I assure you that not all working people do.

No, I don't forget that at all. My point was simply that the discrepancy between that propaganda and reality will catch up with working people (in many cases it already has, it's just a matter of their uncertainty over what to do about it), and that there will be more important factors than an article like this, however well-researched, when it does.

[Black_Rose]

I for one see this news as a very good thing, hearing the same arguments out of the right-wing capitalists about "how easy it is to move up in this country if you work hard enough"

It's not easy to move up if you have to work hard.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

So here on Revleft, we don't need any convincing -- but if the feeling in the general population is that in capitalism, you work very hard for someone else (if you are lucky), and then die, than perhaps things shift -- but the shift in consciousness will not happen because of academic studies --it will happen because conditions will be intolerable. That's when revolutions happen, when things cannot go on the way that they have any longer.

[Black_Rose]

So here on Revleft, we don't need any convincing -- but if the feeling in the general population is that in capitalism, you work very hard for someone else (if you are lucky), and then die, than perhaps things shift -- but the shift in consciousness will not happen because of academic studies --it will happen because conditions will be intolerable. That's when revolutions happen, when things cannot go on the way that they have any longer.

That's certainly a welcome dose of realism, but it is somewhat discouraging because it implies that the system can only change when conditions become so inhospitable that it cannot be hidden by bourgeois propaganda. I tend to think that the "working class" (defined here as those lower than the 90th percentile economically and earn an income from labor and not the ownership of capital) tend to become inured to the adverse economic trends of capitalism because it is not currently affecting them yet; for instance, free trade and automation disproportionately affect blue collar service and manufacturing workers, but white collar workers can believe that they are impervious to this trend. There isn't much solidarity or empathy among the "working class" in capitalist countries since the non-capital owning class is not economically or culturally homogenous.

[RRRevolution]

People have been saying the rags to riches myth is a sack of shit for quite some time now. It's funny that that's being acknowledged by MSNBC though.

[cyu]

Interesting to see it in Scientific American

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/economic-inequality-it-s-far-worse-than-you-think/

The average American believes that the richest fifth own 59% of the wealth and that the bottom 40% own 9%. The reality is strikingly different. The top 20% of US households own more than 84% of the wealth, and the bottom 40% combine for a paltry 0.3%.

The median American estimated that the CEO-to-worker pay-ratio was 30-to-1, and that ideally, it’d be 7-to-1. The reality? 354-to-1.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Keep the necromancy to the graveyard. ;)