Luminist Archives

A NOTE OF APPRECIATION FROM THE RICH

Let’s be honest: you’ll never win the lottery.

On the other hand, chances are pretty high that you’ll slave away at some shitty job the rest of your life.

That’s because in all likelihood you were born into the wrong social class. Let’s face it — you’re a member of the WORKING CASTE.

As a result, you don’t have the education, upbringing, connections, manners, appearance, and good taste to ever become one of us.

In fact, you’d probably need a book the size of the yellow pages to list all the unfair advantages we have over you.

That’s why we’re so relieved that you continue to believe the silly old fairy tale about “justice” and “equal opportunity” in America.

Of course, in a hierarchical system like ours, there’s not much room at the top to begin with. And anyway, it’s already occupied by us (in fact we like it up here so much that we intend to keep it that way).

But at least there’s usually someone lower in the social hierarchy you can feel superior to and kick in the teeth once in a while. Even a lowly dishwasher can find some poor slob even lower than he to sneer and spit at.

So be thankful for poor Blacks, migrant workers, prostitutes and homeless street people.

Always remember that if everyone like you were economically secure and socially privileged like us, there would be no one left to fill those boring, dangerous shit jobs in our economy. And no one to fight our wars or blindly follow orders in our corporate armies. And certainly no one to meekly go to their grave without having lived a full and creative life.

So please, keep up the good work!

Plus, you probably don’t have the same vicious, greedy, compulsive drive to acquire and possess wealth, power and prestige that we have. And even though you sincerely desire freedom, you also fear freedom, keeping you and others like you in a nervous state of limbo.

So you mechanically go through life playing your assigned social role, terrified of what others would think should you ever dare to “break out of the mold.”

Naturally we play you off against each other whenever it suits our purposes: skilled workers against unskilled, unionized against non-unionized, Black against White, American workers against Japanese against Mexican against....

We continually keep your wages low by invoking “foreign competition,” “the law of supply and demand,” or “national security.”

We throw you into the unemployed if you step out of line or jeopardize our profits.

We even let you vote for one of our political surrogates every now and then.

Happily, you haven’t a clue as to what’s really happening — instead you blame Blacks, Jews, Welfare Mothers, Queers (everybody except us) for your troubled situation.

Not only that, you still embrace the work ethic, even though most jobs in our economy undermine your health, poison the environment, and suck your one and only life out of you.

We don’t know much about work, but we’re sure glad that you do.

Of course life could be different.

Society could be organized to meet the real needs of the general population.

You could control your own activity and not be someone else’s pawn.

But you don’t know that. You can’t even imagine it.

In fact, that’s probably the greatest accomplishment of our system: robbing you of your imagination, your creativity, your ability to think for yourself.

So we’d truly like to thank you from the bottom of our heartless hearts. It’s obedient wage slaves like you that help make our lives so pleasant. Your loyal sacrifice makes possible our corrupt luxury; your work makes our system work.

So once again, thanks for “knowing your place” — without even knowing it.

$igned,
Rich $cum of America