America's Brutal Culture Of Unseen Oppression

By Robert Chesshyre

Travelling in Costa Rica, I met an ex-pat, all-American American - a craggy, Lee Marvin lookalike, with a black Stetson, cowboy boots and a wide leather belt sporting a death's- head buckle. My immediate reaction was that here was the archetypal red neck, who had probably left the United States to live in central America because he found the US soft on "commies" and wanted a home where a man could be a "man".

We fell into conversation, and I asked why he had left home. To my surprise, he cited American penal policy. He didn't feel comfortable and couldn't sleep nights in a country that locked up so many of its citizens; kept thousands (mainly poor and black) incarcerated for years on death rows; and had mandatory "life means life" sentences handed down to impoverished inner city young men who fell foul of the law three times.

The Self-Attribution Fallacy

Intelligence? Talent? No, the ultra-rich got to where they are through luck and brutality.

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren’t responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.