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Adam Smith summed up the vile maxim of the elite class as follows (back in 1776): “All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” To be sure, there was only contempt in the US for the “vile maxim” during the 19^th century among industrial workers (including the lively and vibrant working class press), who bitterly condemned the advance of the Industrial Revolution and much of what it entailed, more concisely, the “‘New Spirit of the Age’: gain wealth, forgetting all but self.” This would have been inconceivable under conditions of brotherly love, solidarity and subsequent equality of condition (not just opportunity), which is a democratic imperative.

Even though money-hungry marauders (political and economic masters) know that only very few of the many who seek wealth will find it, still, it is of inestimable importance for them to peddle “rags to riches” stories with great enthusiasm, because they are a useful myth for control.