I will focus on two of America's brightest, historian Alfred W. McCoy and America's informal theologian Chris Hedges (a once divinity student and aspiring theologian, and later a NY Times journalist), in order to illustrate how intellectuals of the upper-middle class function to preserve the ruling capitalist class. I will draw on a recent book by McCoy entitled In the Shadow of the American Century (also a precursor to the book in a 2010 article by him published by CBS News entitled "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire") and a recent article by Chris Hedges entitled "The End of Empire" in which he references the book by Professor McCoy.
When you examine both of their backgrounds (McCoy's self biography in his book's introduction entitled "US Global Power and Me" and Hedges in Wikipedia), I think there is sufficient evidence to classify their backgrounds as upper-middle class. These people are truly indispensable to running a capitalist society. But their relationship to capitalists, who constitute the ruling class, is very much like the African-American concept of one type of slave relationship with the master of the house or plantation that existed in our period of slavery. Malcolm X colorfully described them as "house Negro" (the servants and maids who worked for the master's family in their home and enjoyed superior privileges) versus the "field Negro" who correspond to ordinary workers.
There was two kind of slaves. There was the house negro and the field negro. The house negro, they lived in the house, with master. They dressed pretty good. They ate good, cause they ate his food, what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near their master, and they loved their master, more than their master loved himself.McCoy supports the existing ruling class by the absence of any mention of capitalism, a social system that insures that societies are infected with class conflict; and in order to reduce such conflicts to a minimum, the ruling classes must engage in widespread and ongoing subterfuge to disguise this fact. He accepts capitalism as the only reality, but suggests that eternal vigilance from more people like him could have preserved US dominance in the world. He argues convincingly that the "American Century", which Henry Luce announced in February 1941 to the delight of domestic fascists, will come to an end in about a decade. However he doesn't see any threats to human extinction due to the likely prospects of a nuclear war conflagration or climate destabilization.
While Hedges occasionally criticizes the excesses of capitalism, he continues to insist that our governing system somehow represents "democracy", and his apparent obsessive concern about non-violence (or at least he uses this as a rationale to oppose any form of violence--see the "The Cancer in Occupy"--even against property as well as the police) insures that a revolution can never be achieved. He praises such benign forms of activism as projects like Cooperation Jackson; and in his latest article entitled "Faces of Pain, Faces of Hope" he definitely prefers the mild models of activism such as found in the Catholic Worker Movement and "intentional communities".
They both fear losing the privileges and wealth they have gained from many years of their active participation in ruling class institutions. Their long years of indoctrination in capitalist views and values handicaps them from offering any effective advice to young activists who see the necessity of ending a system which guarantees endless wars, exploitation, the destabilization of the climate, and the likely extinction of humans.
