Bobby Bones Quotes

What family you were born into matters so much more than it did before in a perverse way.

I only knew about daily life. It was said, well, it isn't everybody's daily life. That is why I started.

Traditionally the great men of our country have sprung from poor environments; that being so, it would appear we have long suffered from a severe lack of poverty.

It's not an underclass anymore; it's an outer class.

The prime culprit in causing contemporary social inequality seems to be merit.

Everybody is not born with a silver spoon in their mouth. There are only a very small percentage of those types of people, you know what I mean?

Inequality is partly a marker of success.

Class still matters in Britain today.

Class is real. It can't be faked.

And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it's not supposed to be.

People tend to think that life really does progress for everyone eventually, that people progress, but actually only some people progress. The rest of the people don't.

If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life.

Some people are at the top of the ladder, some are in the middle, still more are at the bottom, and a whole lot more don't even know there is a ladder.

Of course, in the United States, which at the time was a very young country, there were also class distinctions. They weren't as pronounced, but they quickly evolved as well.

In Britain, by contrast, we still think that class plays a part in determining a person's life chances, so we're less inclined to celebrate success and less inclined to condemn failure. The upshot is that it's much easier to be a failure in Britain than it is in America.

There are only two classes - first class and no class.

I am no leveller; I look upon an artificial equality as equally pernicious with a factitious aristocracy; both depressing the energies and checking the enterprise of a nation.

A meritocracy increases inequality --- by its very nature, it has to.

In the first phase of economic development you have rising inequality.

The gap between aspiration and reality could hardly be wider. Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrial country. Study after study has exposed the myth that America is a land of opportunity. This is especially tragic: While Americans may differ on the desirability of equality of outcomes, there is near-universal consensus that inequality of opportunity is indefensible.

Inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity, and expanding equality of opportunity only increases it—because some individuals and communities are simply better able than others to exploit the opportunities for development and advancement that capitalism affords.

The financial rewards of economic change have accrued disproportionately to the most talented and well-educated members of society.

It is surprising how few references in our politics there are to the underclass as compared by the middle class.

When I ascended from the depths of the working class to the middle class, the higher I got, the more dishonesty I found.

America is a meritocracy.