The oligarchs are assisted in their control by what Kotkin calls the “clerisy” class — an amalgam of academics, media and government employees who play the role that medieval clergy once played in legitimizing the powerful…

Because it doesn’t have to work in competitive industries, the clerisy favors regulations, land-use rules and environmental restrictions that make things worse for businesses — especially the small “yeoman” businesses that traditionally sustained much of the middle class…

But the lower classes, sustained by government handouts and by rhetoric from the clerisy, provide enough votes to keep the machine running, at least for a while.

How can you miss it, Bowz? This is the whole right-wing mythology summarized right there for you–all the old cliches, all the right memes. It’s all there, “academic parasites, media drones, and government bureaucrats”; “who don’t have to work in competitive industries” crushing the “small yeoman businesses” with endless “land-use rules and environmental regulations”.

The role of outsourcing, relocation, lobbying, crony capitalism, Walmarting and big franchises putting the mom-and-pops out of business, overseas inversion, and all the other tricks big business uses to avoid paying decent salaries and fair taxes, are conveniently ignored, and the blame is dumped on those “media and academic elites”. Yeah, Kollege perfessers, Hollywood pansies and pinko journalists. Round up the usual suspects.

And of course, lurking in the background, “the lower classes sustained by government handouts”. We all know who they are, right? Welfare queens and Mexican illegals.

This is classic Joe Goebbels agitprop. You create an enemy, a scapegoat, that the current malaise can be dumped on, to distract the man who feels his entire old world slipping away from him. It is not world economic conditions, the forces of history, and certainly not the plutocrats and oligarchs who really run his society that (if they have not deliberately crafted this crisis) are doing everything they can to position themselves to profit from it–at everyone elses expense.

I’m surprised they were able to restrain themselves from just invoking the “Bolshevik Jewish Bankers Conspiracy who have stabbed us in the back”.

That’s what they did the last time.

I believe what you are referring to is what I call the “Babbitts” (after the title character in the Upton Sinclair novel), the quintessential American booboisie–the administrative/managerial/professional class.

The Babbitts are the wannabees, the ones who are waiting their turn to move up into the executive elite but who subconsciously realize they, and certainly their kids, are being squeezed permanently out into the next subclass down: the Bunkers, (after Archie, their most noted archetype). Today’s Babbitt knows his class is on the decline, and he’s pissed. And he’s ready to blame someone, he needs a scapegoat, the clerisy will do nicely.

The premise as stated in the post is simply a description of what is obvious, the middle class is being eroded as the upper class is increasing it’s holdings and control.

We can see on these boards how the “clerisy” works. We have a cluster of folks who are dupes, clerisy wannabees, who fervently embrace policies and practices which are dedicated to their own downfall. These are folks who advocate for the upper class to their own detriment. They are not the people who hire and fire, they simply approve of those who do.

It’s not the “clerisy’s” fault the country is going down the toilet. In fact, they’re the only ones trying to warn us. The academics, the media and government employees don’t hire or fire people in the middle and working classes. They don’t hire and fire anyone at all. They have absolutely no economic power because they don’t own anything and they don’t control the means of production. They all work for a paycheck, just like the rest of us. And they are losing their jobs, too.

Businesses owners and corporation executives hire and fire people. And the last time I heard, they were doing just fine, firing people here and hiring them overseas. Or bringing them from overseas as illegals so they can hire them dirt-cheap here.

As for the Institute for Justice, read all about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Justice

“William H. “Chip” Mellor and Clint Bolick co-founded the organization in 1991 with seed money from libertarian philanthropist Charles Koch.”

Wikipedia also included this message on that page.

“The neutrality of this section is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page”.