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Are They Rich Because They're Smart?
Are They Rich Because They're Smart? explains the sharpening class inequalities in the United States and the resulting conflicts accelerated by today s slow-burning world depression. It takes apart the self-serving rationalizations of a growing layer of well-paid professionals that their schooling and brightness equip them to regulate the lives of working people, who can t be trusted to know what s in our own interests.
In the coming battles forced upon us by the capitalist rulers, says Jack Barnes, workers will begin to transform ourselves and our attitudes toward life, work, and each other. Only then will we discover our own worth and learn what we re capable of becoming.
In the coming battles forced upon us by the capitalist rulers, says Jack Barnes, workers will begin to transform ourselves and our attitudes toward life, work, and each other. Only then will we discover our own worth and learn what we re capable of becoming.
- GenresEconomics
111 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 2016
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112 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 3, 2018
امان از ترجمه
July 7, 2019
Good lesson for mid class workers
November 15, 2023
This short read of collected conversations by Jack Barnes is thought provoking and informative. I would answer yes in response to the books title but I keep in mind that this question has so many layers behind it. Layers of why they are rich, why they are smart. To accumulate all of this capital and control of all aspects of our lives, I certainly don't think they are stupid. Each innovation we create whether it's a new car, furniture, phone, is veiled as a purpose of providing a service but truly a reason for acquiring capital. There just so happens to be endless ways of acquiring capital nowadays in the digital age. Everyone has a new book, movie, show, podcast, all for the purpose of selling ads for corporations to accumulate capital.
I am still taken aback with the provided explanation of Marx, Meiksens Wood, and Barnes in this text, that very social fabric of our life is designed to be revolving around commodity exchange. We drive or fly to see family, bring gifts for a holiday, eat food in the picture perfect dining room, watching football while the commercials play. This example scenario that I do every year is paywall blocked. I could not do any of these things unless I have capital. And to have capital, I must sell my labor power until I die. I don't think I'm lost in the details either, as this is our reality. Our societal role is to produce capital and reproduce so our offspring will grow up to produce capital. I do my best with distractions after work to forget this, as I play video games, watch sports, or watch a movie, all of which are things that are commodity transactions. I don't like grappling with the fact that human beings are a commodity either, our labor power to be specific.
It boggles my mind that capitalism still exists. I envy the naive working class who are oblivious to our social problems and dismissing it to "that's just the way it is". "Things are hard now but they'll get better once we vote this guy in office". The concept of paying to have a place to live on planet earth, eat food, and drink water, is fundamentally insane to me. I do my best to be optimistic by envisioning a world where everyone's consciousness finally associates why things are they way they are, and how they can become better, a better specifically through a socialist world. We are not supporting each others as human beings in capitalist society. We are born to create profits or be cannon fodder, then die. This would not be in the case in a socialist society, where we would be working for each other and the betterment of the world. Every time I doubt my beliefs I remember how bad things are today and be optimistic of how much better the world could truly be. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
- "Nobody in the ruling class has, or can have, any solution to the crisis of the capitalist system, and none of them, of course, has any alternative to doing what is necessary to maximize profits. What could they propose? To stop competing? To raise wages and cut hours, while their rivals are cutting wages and extending hours? To stop using cops as a feared control force?"
- "The concept of race, in its virulent and pseudoscientific forms—as a justification for chattel slavery, for example—is a product of the rise of industrial capitalism."
- "What the social labor of human beings will make possible under communism will put humanity so far above the shoulders of those whom we today consider the great thinkers and doers of history that we cannot even conceive the terms of comparison."
- "To maintain their high incomes and living standards, they are dependent on skimming off a portion of surplus value- "rents"-produced by working people and appropriated by the bourgeoisie. Yet the big majority contribute nothing themselves to the creation of that value, even in wasteful or socially harmful ways."
- "Instead, many of them pursue careers—in the universities, the media, "think tanks," and elsewhere-that generate ideological rationalizations for class exploitation and inequality (as they strive to "reform" it, of course). Others, whether as highly paid supervisory personnel, staffers, or attorneys, administer the rulers' efforts through foundations, "advocacy groups," NGOs, charities, and other "nonprofit" institutions, here and around the world, to postpone and buffer the explosive social and political responses by working people to our worsening living and job conditions."
- "That's another function of education under capitalism. It gives certain privileged social layers a license to a higher income—a license to a slice of the surplus value workers create through our labor. The surplus value we create is much greater than the wages capitalists pay us. In addition to the shares of surplus value the owners of industrial, banking, commercial, and land-owning capital divvy up among themselves (through competition) in the form of profits, interest, and rent, they also pay out part of this wealth to these layers of professionals, managers, and supervisory personnel."
- "It is not true that the capitalist class needs for workers to be educated; it's a lie. They need for us to be obedient, not to be educated. They need for us to have to work hard to make a living, not to be critical. They need for us to consume all we make each week buying their products. Above all, they need for us to lose any desire over time to broaden our scope and become citizens of the world."
I am still taken aback with the provided explanation of Marx, Meiksens Wood, and Barnes in this text, that very social fabric of our life is designed to be revolving around commodity exchange. We drive or fly to see family, bring gifts for a holiday, eat food in the picture perfect dining room, watching football while the commercials play. This example scenario that I do every year is paywall blocked. I could not do any of these things unless I have capital. And to have capital, I must sell my labor power until I die. I don't think I'm lost in the details either, as this is our reality. Our societal role is to produce capital and reproduce so our offspring will grow up to produce capital. I do my best with distractions after work to forget this, as I play video games, watch sports, or watch a movie, all of which are things that are commodity transactions. I don't like grappling with the fact that human beings are a commodity either, our labor power to be specific.
It boggles my mind that capitalism still exists. I envy the naive working class who are oblivious to our social problems and dismissing it to "that's just the way it is". "Things are hard now but they'll get better once we vote this guy in office". The concept of paying to have a place to live on planet earth, eat food, and drink water, is fundamentally insane to me. I do my best to be optimistic by envisioning a world where everyone's consciousness finally associates why things are they way they are, and how they can become better, a better specifically through a socialist world. We are not supporting each others as human beings in capitalist society. We are born to create profits or be cannon fodder, then die. This would not be in the case in a socialist society, where we would be working for each other and the betterment of the world. Every time I doubt my beliefs I remember how bad things are today and be optimistic of how much better the world could truly be. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
- "Nobody in the ruling class has, or can have, any solution to the crisis of the capitalist system, and none of them, of course, has any alternative to doing what is necessary to maximize profits. What could they propose? To stop competing? To raise wages and cut hours, while their rivals are cutting wages and extending hours? To stop using cops as a feared control force?"
- "The concept of race, in its virulent and pseudoscientific forms—as a justification for chattel slavery, for example—is a product of the rise of industrial capitalism."
- "What the social labor of human beings will make possible under communism will put humanity so far above the shoulders of those whom we today consider the great thinkers and doers of history that we cannot even conceive the terms of comparison."
- "To maintain their high incomes and living standards, they are dependent on skimming off a portion of surplus value- "rents"-produced by working people and appropriated by the bourgeoisie. Yet the big majority contribute nothing themselves to the creation of that value, even in wasteful or socially harmful ways."
- "Instead, many of them pursue careers—in the universities, the media, "think tanks," and elsewhere-that generate ideological rationalizations for class exploitation and inequality (as they strive to "reform" it, of course). Others, whether as highly paid supervisory personnel, staffers, or attorneys, administer the rulers' efforts through foundations, "advocacy groups," NGOs, charities, and other "nonprofit" institutions, here and around the world, to postpone and buffer the explosive social and political responses by working people to our worsening living and job conditions."
- "That's another function of education under capitalism. It gives certain privileged social layers a license to a higher income—a license to a slice of the surplus value workers create through our labor. The surplus value we create is much greater than the wages capitalists pay us. In addition to the shares of surplus value the owners of industrial, banking, commercial, and land-owning capital divvy up among themselves (through competition) in the form of profits, interest, and rent, they also pay out part of this wealth to these layers of professionals, managers, and supervisory personnel."
- "It is not true that the capitalist class needs for workers to be educated; it's a lie. They need for us to be obedient, not to be educated. They need for us to have to work hard to make a living, not to be critical. They need for us to consume all we make each week buying their products. Above all, they need for us to lose any desire over time to broaden our scope and become citizens of the world."
October 24, 2021
white man’s communism
November 9, 2025
Or Are They ‘Smart’ Because They’re Rich?
This simple question is always at the heart of politics, but more so today, because I believe that liberals and the “left” have become far more elitist than conservatives. All of the Wokery, cancel culture, identity politics, critical race theory, “gender” change, and other “political correctness” are not about fighting racism and sexism—they can’t be because they think these things are in people’s heads, not material conditions. They’re about proving one better than others, which is central to capitalist politics and culture. People in these circles are rating themselves and others by how victimized they are. But they’re all middle class, and none of them know what real oppression is. And they glorify victimhood, rather than organizing to fight against it. The #MeToo “movement” was an example of this, and a very dangerous one, since it eats away at what little is left of the concept of “innocent until proven guilty.”
I also suggest Labor, Nature, and the Evolution of Humanity: The Long View of History. And The Clintons' Anti-working-class Record: Why Washington Hates Working People.
The liberal response to the election of Donald Trump was hysterical. The idea that all the people who voted for him did so because they were racist was absurd. Did everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton want a new war? Many who voted for him had voted once or even twice for Obama, but they live in areas where the lifespan is falling, people don’t have jobs, many get addicted to painkillers because life is so miserable … that they couldn’t conceive of voting for the status quo.
Middle class liberals not only don’t suffer under these conditions, and they don’t know anyone who does. The cultural class gap is widening, and they won’t even consider talking to someone who voted for Trump—They applaud when such people are assaulted. They don’t support free speech; they want protection for themselves and those in their bubbles against “microaggression.” And worst of all, they hate the working class who they consider responsible for everything backward, and they condemn all white workers as “privileged” despite the fact that they themselves are far more privileged!
These are three essays by Socialist Workers Party leader Jack Barnes that were originally written for different purposes, but they fit together perfectly as an argument that this country needs to be ruled by a better class of people—the working class.
This simple question is always at the heart of politics, but more so today, because I believe that liberals and the “left” have become far more elitist than conservatives. All of the Wokery, cancel culture, identity politics, critical race theory, “gender” change, and other “political correctness” are not about fighting racism and sexism—they can’t be because they think these things are in people’s heads, not material conditions. They’re about proving one better than others, which is central to capitalist politics and culture. People in these circles are rating themselves and others by how victimized they are. But they’re all middle class, and none of them know what real oppression is. And they glorify victimhood, rather than organizing to fight against it. The #MeToo “movement” was an example of this, and a very dangerous one, since it eats away at what little is left of the concept of “innocent until proven guilty.”
I also suggest Labor, Nature, and the Evolution of Humanity: The Long View of History. And The Clintons' Anti-working-class Record: Why Washington Hates Working People.
The liberal response to the election of Donald Trump was hysterical. The idea that all the people who voted for him did so because they were racist was absurd. Did everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton want a new war? Many who voted for him had voted once or even twice for Obama, but they live in areas where the lifespan is falling, people don’t have jobs, many get addicted to painkillers because life is so miserable … that they couldn’t conceive of voting for the status quo.
Middle class liberals not only don’t suffer under these conditions, and they don’t know anyone who does. The cultural class gap is widening, and they won’t even consider talking to someone who voted for Trump—They applaud when such people are assaulted. They don’t support free speech; they want protection for themselves and those in their bubbles against “microaggression.” And worst of all, they hate the working class who they consider responsible for everything backward, and they condemn all white workers as “privileged” despite the fact that they themselves are far more privileged!
These are three essays by Socialist Workers Party leader Jack Barnes that were originally written for different purposes, but they fit together perfectly as an argument that this country needs to be ruled by a better class of people—the working class.
March 9, 2020
Compré este libro corto en una feria de libros (Chicago Lit Fest) hace seis meses. Primero, quiero aclarar que yo soy más izquierdista que conservador, pero lo he leído, y puedo decir que es algo aburrido, con el autor recorriendo los mismos temas izquierdistas y cansados. Hay un buen argumento o dos, pero más que nada, el autor no parece ofrecer soluciones concretas en cuanto a la batalla de clases sociales en los Estados Unidos.
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