Wikipedia: Class envy

Difference (from prior major revision) (no other diffs)

Changed: 5c5

One way this is done is to somehow imply or overtly state that higher income, higher status, or higher rank (as in hereditray nobility) people 'won the lottery' and therefore don't deserve what they own. Another way it to state or imply that the higher income people became so only by depriving the lower income people. As the tactic is based in part on at least a grain of truth, it can be quite effective.

Changed: 7,11c7

Historically, nobility and land owners in feudal societies literally were a leisure class and made their living off the backs of the tenants of their land. Land ownership was a matter of fiat, and could only be enjoyed at the sufferance of royalty or of hereditary nobles, whose titles ran with their lands, and vice-versa.

With the advent of capitalism in the West, another sort of baronetcy was born, that of the robber barons - captains of industry. These were often unscrupulous individuals who took criminal advantage of employees, customers, competitors and the mechanisms of government regulation through tactics which included indentureship, slave wages, usurious loans (often to their own employees and their families), monopolies, price fixing, bribery, unfair competition (such as selling in large volume at deficit pricing which only they were financially stong enough to survive, until competitors were forced to close or sell out), etc.

Modern government regulation has largely put an end to the reign of the robber barons, but the sting of the injury that they inflicted on their fellow man lingers on. Consequently, the heirs to these monied families and others whose accumulation of wealth resembles such dynasties are easy public relations targets for those who would take advantage of the greed and envy of the less fortunate.

Frequently throughout history, nobility and land owners in feudal societies were literally a leisure class and made their living by exploiting the tenants of their land. Land ownership was a matter of fiat, and could only be enjoyed at the sufferance of royalty or of hereditary nobles, whose titles ran with their lands, and vice-versa.

Class envy is a tool or tactic of political rhetoric where one pits one economic group against another.

Typically, the lower income people are encouraged to desire the material possesions of higher income people.

Critics of class envy tactics point out that modernly, the majority of higher income people earned the money themselves.

Some cliches of class envy:

he won life's lottery
referring to low income people as 'working people' and not stating that higher income people also work.
he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth - he's rich because his parents were.
blue-blood (as a derogatory term)
referring to all business leaders as robber-barons.

more suggestions?