Invisible Class

 Here's *one* reason it's so difficult for most of us to believe we live in a class society. Although we live in an economic oligarchy, with massive and faceless corporations & bureaucracies controlling our lives, we also live in a political democracy, where everyone is theoretically "equal." It is this political equality that helps befuddle us into blindness to the economic inequality of our lives. This is one reason people are mystified by the question, "What class do you belong to?" and find it so hard to answer. After a moment of puzzlement they say, "Why, we're *all* middle-class in America, aren't we?"