8.7 Peering into the Future:

 Peering into the Future: Will We Live in a Three-Tier Society? 8.7 Discuss the possibility that we are developing a three-tier society. Now that we have looked at social class in the United States, you should be much more aware not only of how social class influences your life but also of how the social classes fit together to form the whole that we call American society. Let’s go beyond this and in the following Thinking Critically about Social Life try to peer into the future. We will consider the disturbing possibility that society is being restratified—and that the picture coming into focus is not pleasant. Unfortunately, this will give us a much darker ending to this chapter than I prefer. But let’s go on. Thinking Critically about Social Life The Coming Three-Tier Society and the Militarization of the Police A three-tier society seems to be looming over us. On the top tier will be the wealthy, who will live in luxury behind gated fortresses, protected from the prying eyes of the unwashed masses. On the middle tier will be the technically trained, an army of servants who will run the essential affairs of society. They will maintain the computers that control the financial system, the infrastructure of utilities, and the government surveillance. There will also be the teachers, the elite ones for the children of the elite and the regular ones whose task is to indoctrinate and control the children of the poor. These technical servants of society’s controllers will be backed up by a police force that has come to look more like the military than the police. And the third tier? This one will consist of the jobless poor. The need for unskilled work is drying up. We still need some fruit pickers and some house cleaners, and an occasional someone to hold up flags when a road is being constructed. But there is little of this kind of work. And most of what there is pays little. Enter one of today’s new factories, and you will be struck by the absence of people. You will see untiring robots that never complain, don’t take coffee breaks, and need neither vacations nor retirement pay. With each passing year, we need fewer human workers. Widespread joblessness will trigger hopelessness and deep despair in some, resentment and hostility in others. To keep the lid on violence as long as possible, two solutions will be followed. The first will be to pacify the jobless through food stamps, subsidized housing, entertainment, and drugs. Videos and television will divert most of the “dangerous poor” from seeking political solutions. Drugs will be tolerated because the poor who flee into them to escape their misery do not threaten the top tier by agitating for political change. Not all will be hopeless: Powerball—with its illusions—will remain. The second solution, coexisting with the first, is the militarization of the police. That the police are beginning to look like the military is not coincidental. This is preparation for the armed force that will be necessary to control the impoverished masses of the third tier. The media have been willing handmaidens of the elite, preparing the public for the militarization of the police by stoking constant fears of “terrorists.” This comes not without a plan from the controllers. The hostile elements of society—the masses left behind with little future, the resentful ones who still possess some hope and who do not choose to escape into drugs or television—pose a threat to the first tier. For most of the jobless poor, welfare food, televised sports, and the stream of “latest revelations” about vaunted celebrities provide escape adequate to keep them in line. But if what the Romans called food and circus fail to keep minds numb and wills weak, the militarized police with their powerful new weapons, armored vehicles, and trained snipers stand ready to take care of the rest. For Your Consideration This is not a pleasant picture of the future, but your author sees it as a looming possibility. → Do you think the three-tier society is our likely destiny? Why or why not? → What do you think we can do to produce a better future than the three-tier society?