• floofloof@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    100
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    The wealth was never meant to trickle down. That was just a line to keep the proles subservient and waiting.

    • EhForumUser@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      That was just a line to keep the proles subservient and waiting.

      Huh? The trickle down line comes from comedian Will Rogers who was making a joke about how President Hoover, who was an engineer, was accustomed to water trickling down, but that he didn’t realize money trickles up.

      It was a line to serve the exact opposite – to tell the ‘proles’ that the economic plan was fundamentally flawed.

      • teuast@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        1 year ago

        yeah, but it was repurposed for that. “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” also has its origins in a saying referring to something that is impossible, but was later repurposed into having the opposite connotation for most people.

        • jonne@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          1 year ago

          Also when conservatives quote MLK about ‘judging people by the content of their character’, and nothing else.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        1 year ago

        Thanks. I learned something. I grew up hearing it discussed seriously in the 1980s, by which time I’m not sure everyone remembered the critical origin you identify. As I remember it, during the Reagan/Thatcher years many people treated the matter of whether and how the wealth would trickle down as a real live question.