Traditional elites declined with the emergence of the middle class (the class between the labor and the ruling/controlling class) from the time of the Magna Carta until the establishment of the United States. America was unique in the expansion of the middle class to the literate, taxpaying mainstream male leadership of the society. This provided a class with independence, knowledge, wealth and voting power to withstand the greed of the power elite. The power elite made continuous efforts to dominate this middle class through ideology, influence peddling, and legal manipulation, most of which could be defeated; but, supported by the application of statist force, ultimately enough of these efforts survived to cumulatively undermine the power of the middle class. It is possible that the middle class could have retained its dominance but for the unexpected anomaly of beguiling events and conditions that came about in the 20th Century culminating in World War II, Bretton Woods and various group rights movements. The establishment and evolution of the US Dollar as the world reserve currency with no physical asset backing created unprecedented conditions that allowed a plethora of entitlement movement, immigration, globalization and wealth manipulation that could otherwise not have been afforded or sustained. Population sizes and mobility with no historical precedent, human health and lifestyle changes, and political decisions having no apparent/immediate economic impact have brought the world and especially developed countries into uncharted territory where reality and meaning are becoming impossible to capture. At the same time, the timeless interests of greed and power-seeking continue, and have guided or manipulated developments to the point where a class conflict between and within the remnants of the middle class, and the labor class supported by a neo-elite class is ensuring the interests of the power elite at the national and global level. This situation is unprecedented because the new elite have no linkages with any community, culture or location. For the first time in history there are tools for controlling economic and financial activity at a total and global scale, most notably through the control and valuation of money, and the physical alienation of economic transactions. There is no historical reference for this environment, so trend or cyclical analysis will have limited or no value. Ideas of political economy and philosophy are also rooted in historical conditions that no longer obtain. Truly revolutionary times have been established for many years now - at least since 1965 - but have not been understood or appreciated. The current revolution has brought fundamental and traumatic changes to the old social, economic, political and existential order over an unexpectedly short period of time and is challenging the notion of a social contract. As a result Americans are trapped by history.
About the Author: H.T. Scott Gibbons has lived most of his life in large urban areas and developing countries outside of the United States, far away from his beloved North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains. He is a cum laude graduate from Duke University, a National Resource Fellow and graduate with distinction from the University of Pennsylvania, has held fellowships from the University of California at Berkeley, and is a member of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. Scott is a working professional who speaks several languages, including his own, mostly correctly. His career has spanned a number of technical and management activities and has been recognized by the United Nations. Whenever possible Scott is overwhelmed by Citroen, Mercedes, Volvo and Jeep classic car restoration and lost in outdoor activities.