The Upper Middle Class Experience

Life as an American Kulak

I am, rather straightforwardly, in what is known as the “upper middle class”. My parents are both college-educated and the main breadwinner of my house makes (I think) over $200,000. When I was younger, I was more in the “middle-middle class”, I think they made around $100,000. My experiences I’m gonna talk about are significant for both of these groups, as I’ve experienced them all my life.

I have lived in suburbs my entire life. I don’t care what people say, I’m a proud ‘burbanite. I don’t care if it isn’t “walkable” enough for you, I like driving anyways. And do you know what I like even more? Not having to worry about getting pickpocketed, mugged, carjacked, nearly as much as someone would if they lived in our diversity-enriched cities. Oh, not to mention that I like not constantly hearing someone blare rap music, or constantly be surrounded by the odor of marijuana. Maybe city-life wouldn’t be so bad if cities had nicer people in them, but I still feel like living in a city would be bizarre. In a city, you have to share all the space that isn’t within your own home with other people, including your walls, ceiling, and floor. People say suburban life is boring, but I’ve never felt that way. The problem with modern suburban life is the increasing alienation people have with their neighbors, and the increasing proportion of suburban homes that are being bought out by childless couples and old people. This is a misuse of the suburbs, the point of suburbs is that they’re a place where kids can grow up. City amenities, such as having Goyslop and tasteful winebars in walking distance, might be entertaining for adults, but that doesn’t mean suburbs are “boring” for kids. When I was a kid I was satisfied playing sports and other games in the grass with my crew island at the center of our cul-de-sac. But I digress…

Anyone who lives in a suburb is subject to a slight bitterness from those who didn’t grow up in a suburb. They feel that, because suburbs are safe and neat, people who grew up there are probably “soft”. For people who insist that suburban living is so terrible, they sure do seem to act like it’s a luxury. Actually, I think a lot of people who insist that suburban living is terrible actually grew up in the suburbs, and just project their miserable life onto wherever they lived. The first half of this crowd is people who live in rural America. Uhh, these people are kind of annoying. Most of them aren’t even farmers, they just have some other job and happen to live in a rural area. They get all of their food from the supermarket. But they LARP as if they’re just like farmers. Some of them are farmers, and farmers do seem to have something of a superiority complex about their occupation. They think that for some reason they’re entitled to more than what they get because they grow people’s food and everyone relies on them for the most important good. It isn’t like farming comes cheap though. If nobody bought their produce then they couldn’t maintain their farms, let alone compete with other farmers. Most farmers are specialized too. They’re not just living off the land. They’re selling their raw product and using the money from that to buy finished goods. You know, at a supermarket… I guess some of these ruralites think that you have to live outside of a suburb to enjoy a “tough” rural hobby… Like… Whaaa? I knew plenty of kids in my suburb who were in boy scouts, and I know plenty of people in suburbs who like to do “rural” activities like fishing and hunting. Also, nothing about living in a suburb anticipates an unathletic lifestyle, at least with respect to those who live in the country. Rural Americans are usually fatter and older than urban and suburban Americans. Both rural and urban Americans are more likely to have criminal elements and drug addiction as well. Is not having an opioid addiction “soft”?

Then there is this urban hatred towards people who live in the suburbs as well. Apparently, not “learning to live with” the constant smell of garbage and weed, constant noise, and higher risk of being a victim of crime makes suburban people softer. This is very counterintuitive logic. What’s next, people who haven’t been raped in the ass are “soft” for not learning to live with weekly ass-rapings? Tolerance is not a virtue! Please understand, the people at the top of society are always capable of living low, but never choose it.

Anyways, pretty much everything I just said extends to attitudes about wealth. Living in a more suburb-y suburb is generally associated with more wealth, so it makes sense. Something I have noticed, especially in college, is that most Americans really do resent everyone wealthier than them. The degree to which they do varies, but it extends across the political spectrum. People view those who are wealthier than themselves as inherently greedy, soft, without struggle, and probably bad people because they didn’t have the “character development” of being poor. There’s no evidence for this. Wealth correlates with intelligence, conscientiousness, agreeability, low criminality, and most importantly, not being a fatass! Intergenerational wealth rises and falls fast when you correct for these other factors.

More importantly, the idea that even 10% of Americans are genuinely “poor” is ridiculous. Poor is living in a mudhut in Afghanistan or Rwanda with no electricity, plumbing, or heating. Poor 100 years ago was poor. The poor today in America have amenities which were reserved for the wealthy 100 years ago, if they even existed at all. Most of the people who insist that they are poor are not even especially poor, because usually when you’re in the UMC you don’t interact with a lot of truly desperately poor people. They’re usually working class or lower middle class people. Americans live in luxury at almost all socio-economic levels.

It’s not like I am a particularly luxurious person either. I don’t buy a lot of shit, I don’t drive an expensive car, and I don’t like going to clubs or going on vacations. The best thing my wealth has done for me is that I don’t have to pay for my own college, but I’m not one of those people who squanders college. It seems like most people at college, even those who are paying out of pocket, view it as important for “character development” (lol?) and the experience of it all and not just as an investment. I view it as the latter. Also, they’ll say that you got where you are because you’re rich. Like… Why don’t you try doing my major at my school, you retarded troglodyte? You don’t even remember high school algebra! And yes, high-skill labor does exist. Showing some stupid video of a factory worker learning a really efficient way of doing something or getting really good at throwing watermelons into a truck is not “high skill labor”. High skill labor is labor which requires skills that a large swathe of the population has a low chance of ever being able to learn.

Also, some of these people will extend the sniveling remarks towards my father. It makes me angry… My dad truly did work hard for what he has, and he’s a better man than me. And he’s definitely experienced far worse than most of these people. But the truth is, my dad doesn’t seem to realize it. He doesn’t realize that most people view us as wealthy. I think adults don’t have this mindset as much as young people do. Particularly, adults of his demographic. When you’re that age, and perhaps because of the worldview of people that age, being wealthy is much more admired than it is among the youth.

My brother also told me he had this experience, that his friends call him out for being wealthy. I told him not to be ashamed of it. There’s nothing wrong with having things other people want, even if they’ll pretend that not having what they want has made them better. But this all has made me understand, along with a simple reading of history, that it is never going to be the 99% vs the 1%. The 99% will maybe get rid of the 1%, if they are lucky, and then move to the new 1%. Then the 5%, then the 10%. Leftists in action won’t be satisfied until you’re sent to a gulag for owning a hot tub or some shit. That’s why I allude to the Kulaks in the subtitle. The Kulaks were not wealthy — in fact, they had a lower quality of life than many of the urban intellectuals spearheading Marxism. But they were wealthy for peasant standards. You didn’t even need to hire workers to be considered a Kulak, just owning a certain amount of heavy machinery like a tractor or a creamery could qualify you. For some reason the Soviets were surprised that Kulaks didn’t want to give up their livelihoods to less efficient collective farms that were instituted by a revolutionary government that they probably didn’t support. They suddenly became greedy enemies of the people simply for owning what they had always owned, and this was used to justify the deprivation of their land. Nobody benefitted from this. Private farms would continue to produce a disproportionate amount of the Soviet Union’s food, because collectivization doesn’t work. Most of the things the Soviet Union got right were incidental, as Russia was already the fastest-growing economy in Europe before WWI. It is worth remembering that revolutions don’t typically happen after long periods of destitution, but after short periods of disappointment following long periods of growth. The French Revolution is another example of this, as it followed the zenith of French power and cultural influence in Europe. Buuut, this is not related to the topic at hand, is it? Once again, I have digressed…

I don’t really have anything else to say about this. Share your thoughts in the comments. I’m going to go drive up and see that eclipse.