Lewis H. Lapham Quotes

The rich and the well-born, according to the Federalist Papers, was greatly feared by the founders.

There isn't much discussion of ruling class in America even in Boston, probably one of the most class-conscious cities in the country?

I intended to be one of the governing class.

Our hotel was full of legislators and volunteer officers, mostly planters or sons of planters, and almost without exception men of standing and property. South Carolina is an oligarchy in spirit, and allows no plebeians in high places.

We don't have to sit by and watch our meritocracy be replaced by a permanent aristocracy, and our democracy be undermined by dynastic wealth.

Washington has become this place that people don't leave. It has become this permanent feudal class.

Keep up the middle class; lop off aristocracy on the one hand, and a rabble at the other; let the middle class ... have the power.

The Iron Law of Oligarchy: every field of human endeavor, every kind of organization, will always be led by a relatively small elite.

A ruling class has emerged. We no longer have government of, by and for the people but rather by professional legislators.

All communities divide ... into the few and the many. The 1st are the rich and well-born; the other are the mass of the people [who are] ... turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right. Give, therefore to the 1st class a distinct, permanent share in the government.

The monarchy and aristocracy have all possible motives for endeavoring to obtain unlimited power over the persons and property of the community. The consequence is inevitable: they have all possible motives for combining to obtain that power.

Inequality [is] a social control mechanism supported by financial interests’ belief in the desirability of oligarchy.

Oligarch is just a nonsense word. What does it mean? I don't like it.

Our democracies are increasingly captured by a ruling class that seeks to perpetuate its privileges.

Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.

There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.

'Plutocracy.' It has a perfect nuance: chilly, inaccessible, icy-rich.

English people are so trapped in this class paradigm.

People live with the illusion that we have a democratic system, but it's only the outward form of one. In reality we live in a plutocracy, a government of the rich.

Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future.

Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up. In other words: 'Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.'

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

It is not difficult to govern. All one has to do is not to offend the noble families.

Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.

The Cabinets who rule the destinies of nations from the various capitals of Europe are but the tools of the moneyed interest. Their quarrels are not dictated by sentiments of national pride or honor, but by the avarice and lust of power on the part of the class to which they belong.