The Occupy Wall Street movement no longer occupies Wall Street, but the issue of class conflict has captured a growing share of the national consciousness. A new Pew Research Center survey of 2,048 adults finds that about two-thirds of the public (66%) believes there are “very strong” or “strong” conflicts between therich and the poor—an increase of 19 percentage points since 2009.
Most importantly, what happened to the American middle class? For the rest of us it’s this: what do I have to do to become one of the top 10 percent?
A 46% plurality believes that most rich people “are wealthy mainly because they know the right people or were born into wealthy families.” But nearly as many have a more favorable view of the rich: 43% say wealthy people became rich “mainly because of their own hard work, ambition or education,” largely unchanged from a Pew survey in 2008.
As someone who has been around self-made wealth creators all his life, maybe here’s where we can skip the rhetoric of class warfare and maybe begin to outline a prescription.
Education: The importance of education takes on three meanings among the top 10 percent: First, they’ve studied at that most famous institution, the School of Hard Knocks. This means, they’ve learned by taking on burdens that most of us avoid, such as making promises they don’t know how to keep but are willing to try.
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