Steven Rattner Quotes

The division of society into estates or castes means in effect that conceptually and organizationally these ‘natural’ forms are established without their economic basis ever becoming conscious

For many centuries Chinese society has been free of class distinctions such as are found even in advanced democracies.

The individual mirrors in his individuation the preordained social laws of exploitation, however mediated.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

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.

English people are so trapped in this class paradigm.

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

The problem is that the U.K. in essence is a feudal society. It's everyone in their place.

I cannot believe there is caste system in society; I cannot believe people are judged on the basis of their prosperity.

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.

The old world of England was picturesque and safe in a way that L.A. wasn't, but it was so amazingly socially cruel. I had never experienced that in America - never in school, nowhere.

I don't like a class system. I don't like the idea of being in a different class than other people.

We need wealthy dogs off the seats of power. They're taking us back to feudalism and I really don't want that. But I'm very far from being a socialist.

The issue of wealth inequality is ... the great moral issue of our time.

Why did the world ever become so unequal?

Republicans look after the rich, and Democrats focus on the needs of the middle class. Neither of them looks after the poor.

A Brahmana shall be compelled to pay a fine of one thousand panas if he has intercourse with … females of those two lower castes; for offending with a … Sudra female a fine of one thousand.

The notion that all human beings born into this world enter at birth into a definite social and economic classification, in which classification they must remain permanently through life, is wholly false and fatal to a progressive civilization.

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

The distribution of wealth ... depends on the laws and customs of society ... what the opinions and feelings of the ruling class make them, and are very different in different ages and countries; and might be still more different, if mankind so chose.

The historical method is often deemed conservative, because it traces the gradual and stately growth of our venerable institutions; but it may exercise a precisely opposite influence by showing the gross injustice which was blindly perpetrated during this growth. The historical method is supposed to prove that economic changes have been the inevitable outcome of natural laws. It just as often proves them to have been brought about by the self-seeking action of dominant classes.

Surely there is something unlovely, to modern as against medieval minds, about marked inequality of either kind income or power.

All the measures of government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.