Our American Class System

By Herb Bowie

Back in the 1970’s, Andy Warhol made this observation about American society:

What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

The sixties and the seventies were also the period during which our US President, John F. Kennedy, confessed that one of his favorite books was a James Bond spy novel, From Russia With Love. (Later in the sixties I remember acquiring and reading all of the Ian Fleming paperbacks, then “loaning” them to my uncle, the chief engineer on a cargo ship, never to see them again.)

This was also the era that included the career of The Beatles. Early on, in 1963, John Lennon wryly remarked at a Royal Variety Performance in London:

For our last number, I’d like to ask your help. Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your…