Classism

Hell is empty.
And all the devils are here.
— The Tempest (I.ii.)

It is the worst of times. It is the best of times.
My dear American cousins, looking down from a country that stretches across the top of your map it seems you are living through a tale of two ever more divided classes.
It is about as bad a time as has ever been if you’re a mother with three children from Honduras who is desperately trying to escape an abusive husband and start a new life in the United States.

While clearly not intended as a tool for the subversion of capitalism, the 2019 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report provides a fascinating glimpse at the inequality that the neoliberal era has produced, who has benefitted and those who have been left behind.

Thousands of Britons died last winter because they couldn’t afford adequate heating. Former UK MP George Galloway joins Rick Sanchez to explain how poverty and inequality in the UK contributed to the country’s decision to leave the EU.

Republicans gutted the IRS with New Democrat support. It ensured that the wealthy can cheat our nation with impunity, says Bill Black.

In class society, everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class.
— Mao, On Practice, 1937
That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence.
— Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood, March 6, 2007

1. There has never been more access to food – domestic and imported – yet hunger is an ongoing problem everywhere. In the U.S. alone, 16.5 million children go to bed hungry and 20% of community college students are experiencing “food insecurity.”
2. Never have there been more communications technologies, yet it is harder to get through to people personally than fifty years ago.

We celebrate Labor Day by honoring workers — especially the forgotten workers. Stay-at-home mothers who home school their children are often forgotten. Others who are forgotten are those who work in school cafeterias, those who empty bedpans in nursing homes, and ordinary local guys, like my plumber. He is smart, honest and he never overcharges. These are just ordinary people. Most have no degrees — no fancy pieces of paper to frame and hang on their walls. These are the “good guys”. They keep our country and homes running. They are the real backbone of the economy.

The difference between liberalism and progressivism is ideological.
Historically, liberalism started with John Locke, whose philosophy was superbly summarized, explained, and referenced to its sources, here; but the following will instead quote directly from those sources: