From a post by Bill Quick on the future of the political parties:
We still have three classes, but they are vastly different from the Marxian concept. We have a producing class, a consuming class, and a political class. There are overlaps, of course, and much movement from one to the other, but, in general, the three divisions work. I suspect my readers will find my enshrinement of politicians into a class all their own to be the most surprising, but what else can you call it? More than 21 million people are employed by government at all levels in the US, by far the single biggest classification of employment in this country. Government workers comprise about 15 percent of the total work force, and exert a significant effect on the political culture of the nation as a whole. The reason for this is simple: Government workers neither produce nor consume in any sense relevant to classical notions of capitalism. Every penny they "earn" is taken from the pockets of those who actually produce things. Every penney they spend returns to those pockets. Their "consumption" is perfectly balanced by their "production," and hence, like corporate taxes, they are an artifact that exists only in a theoretical sense.
Yet this shell game permits them a lifestyle in general better than any similar group of their counterparts in private industry, and so their deeply vested interest is in the continuation of the state, and is, hence, a political interest. They are the political class to a far greater and more meaningful extent than those who dabble in politics for reasons of ideology. Further, some segments of the political class - and not just elected politicans - are beginning to show one of the historical markers of any class - their class status is becoming hereditary.
Read the whole thing at Daily Pundit. (his links weren't working so you must scroll down.)
