A permanent underclass is required for the United States' capitalist machine to function

I thank you for your response...Firstly, my point regarding the Sophists was not a personal attack. It was a reference to the use and manipulation of education to con less savvy peoples. The money was just a bonus. I do not purport to know the intent of your rhetoric. Tables such as the one you presented only serve to validate the arbitrary status claimed by the 'upper' class, as the measurements or standards are based on culturally biased assessments. As for work. I agree it depends on one's definition as there are many to choose from. However, implying that intellectual capacity is labor worthy of more 'remuneration' is flawed as it assumes bankers are able to act on their own thought. Bankers are defined as mediators or safeguards who must go by the guidelines of the Federal Reserve, to ensure customers may withdraw their money from their accounts without disruptions. Who are they safeguarding? Who are they representing as mediators? - the upper class. Bankers actually are used as tool to prevent undesired individuals from obtaining money and they remunerated well for their espionage. Whereas, a street sweeper, though still a cog in the system does not protect the interests of the upper class. This willingness to protect and maintain the status quo is why the banker receives more wages and also the true intent of his highly accredited academia or should I say training. A good metaphor would be doctors, who although they know the effectiveness of natural medicine are explicitly instructed to sell the public on pharmaceuticals. Capitalism is about making money not productivity. As such, the so called 'upper' class could care less about the widening poverty gap as long as they remain in the upper tier. The widening gap just provides more excess labor in their opinion and provides them the opportunity to lower wages even more based on the principles of supply and demand. This lack of efficiency through over-productivity is illustrated by what I termed surplus of resources. A reason why most of the populace is urged to consume so as to feed the machine. The under class does not require the upper class' labors they require access to the resources that are unequally and unjustly guarded, manipulated and regulated by the so called 'upper' class. Honestly, the upper class rarely works, they monitor and manipulate. They desire others to do their dirty work for them for a host of reasons. The one issue you didn't mention is perhaps most key in the upper class' maintenance of the status quo. That would be the inequality in education - or the difference between public and private schools. Students in certain public schools are economically destined for the lower class based on their zip code. This has come to be defined as the school to prison pipeline. A pipeline that is just one of the many hypocrisies that destroy the false concept of the American dream. The truly wealthy are not wealthy from there normal well paid jobs, they are wealthy from historical abuses of power or 'old money'. A fact that you alluded to as a "screwed historical interpretation of *how* a class imbalance was perpetrated." As for the periphery debate regarding the night and the day. Let us degree that there would be no distinction for light if dark did not exist. I look forward to your response...you made some interesting remarks....