The middle-class ladder has rungs that no longer exist for many trying to climb higher. Instead, for too many, in too many places, their chore is simply trying to hang on.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up. In other words: 'Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.'
There is no greater ladder into the middle class than education.
I don't believe in kicking away ladders. By that, I mean the ladders by which I ascended as a young writer, small magazines that didn't pay anything, and that sort of thing.
I don't ever remember them telling us or teaching us that the only way we could be more successful is if other people were less successful. They never inculcated the belief that somehow, in order for us to climb the ladder, other people have to come down from the ladder.
The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.
There's no 'Chutes and Ladders' in life.
The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.
For the most ambitious young people, the corporate ladder is obsolete.
The middle class has just fallen further and further behind the rich.
It is the tendency of the social burdens to crush out the middle class, and to force society into an organization of only two classes, one at each social extreme.
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