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Showing posts from November 11, 2020

Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They Aren't Out To Get You

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Ever since I read The Rich and the Super Rich: A Study in the Power of Money (1968) in the 1970s, I keep wanting to discuss it in various forums and chat rooms, but I'm always dismissed as a paranoid nut. The problem is that Lundberg's thesis is played out in plain view in daily life. It's encapsulated in the quote in the background of the photo at right (click on the image for a larger copy). His thesis is that America is dominated by a clique of 60 highly influential families -- let's stop right there. Critiques of his America's 60 Families (1937) complain that he never lists the 60 families he's talking about. This misunderstands Lundberg. He's a rhetorician, not a sociologist. His writing is brilliantly outrageous hyperbole -- the American people he characterizes as sansculottes and descamisados , which of course isn't literally true at all; many wear designer clothes, even the poor. He's speaking of their relative political power, which in ...