"When the slaves get together that's the beginning of getting out of slavery." - The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

AMHERST - Money is permission to exercise power. The more money one acquires, the more power one can access.

No matter how one becomes rich one is likely to use the power thus accrued, in alliance with others who are rich, to try to stay rich. Unchecked by a powerful organized labor force and a government responsive to the vast majority of its constituents who are not rich, this leads to the perpetuation of aristocracy, a structural reality now well established in our country.

If you believe in the "American dream" you want an economically fluid society. This requires an expansive middle class and an upper class that is not insulated from the dynamics of a shifting economy. You do not want to entrench aristocracy. This latter, however, is precisely what the already wealthy do want.

Their interests are antagonistic to those of the vast majority and their political strategy is to obfuscate this dark secret. Denial of the very existence of economic classes in America is a central tactic of that obscurantist agenda.

Top down class struggle shows up as dangerous working conditions, battles to keep wages low, violence against indigenous people so their resources can be stolen and privatizing profits while socializing costs. It is seen as well in coercing the poor to fight in wars that defend the property of the rich who send them into battle, taxing the middle class more than the upper classes, banishing estate taxes so fortunes can accumulate, and innumerable others.

Successful promotion of this agenda requires domination of government so it serves the interests of the wealthy.

One thing there is practically none of in the U.S. today is bottom-up class warfare, although to hear the protestations of the ruling class one might be led to imagine it is rampant.

When it is pointed out that we have a disintegrating middle class and an increasingly hopeless underclass, in the face of a flourishing minority of spectacularly wealthy people, this is called "class warfare" in order to stifle meaningful conversation about class realities. The plutocrats are working tirelessly to engineer the perpetuation of this.

Those who litter conversation with the landmine idiom "warfare" whenever class is mentioned also conjure the epithet "Marxist" and lob this rhetorical grenade as the secondary line of defense against reasoned discussion.

This would be just silly were it not so lamentably effective at stopping thought and conversation. Really, now. Pointing out the existence of economic classes and the inevitability of conflicts between them makes one a Marxist in about the same way as pointing out the reality of gravity makes one a Newtonist.

You may deny the existence of gravity, but if you lean over too far you will fall down just the same.

The richest 1 percent now control over 40 percent of the nation's wealth, and the money trajectory continues upward. This is not accidental. It is largely a consequence of public policy shaped by the ruling class to its own advantage. It is not sustainable for a healthy democracy that can flexibly respond to the needs of the greatest number of citizens.

Quite to the contrary of inciting class warfare, progressive activists are trying to prevent it. History teaches that the denial of the reality of class conflict makes the eruption of warfare more probable as inequity intensifies. That is the tragic irony of denial.

What the ruling elite strive to prevent at any cost is the achievement of class consciousness, which leads naturally to class solidarity. These developments coalesce when members of the underclasses become aware of the fact that their interests do not align with those of the upper classes and that they are being exploited. The lower classes then realize their shared interests and this undermines their continued complicity in the organization of power and privilege that fosters their own oppression.

To frustrate the development of class consciousness conservative politicians drive any wedge they can between the middle and lower classes and divide these groups along any cultural fault lines they can exploit. They discourage whites and blacks, anglos and latino/as, gays and straights, men and women, workers and the unemployed, Christians and non-Christians, recent immigrants and longer term residents, and others, from recognizing natural class affinities and forging common cause. Both political parties are complicit in this to varying degrees.

They often spout absolutist positions on "social" issues like abortion, capital punishment, marriage equality, affirmative action or marijuana decriminalization, just to name a few, while their behavior reveals personal ambivalence about such matters.

They will do anything they can get away with to disenfranchise lower income voters and repress voter turn-out. The one thing they will not compromise is upper class loyalty. That is why progressive advocacy for "the 99 percent" has their attention.

Jonathan Klate of Amherst has practiced acupuncture and Chinese medicine for over 30 years and writes about spirituality and political perspectives. His column appears every other Monday. He can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.