Class in America

Although Mantsios mentions mentions the idea of the rich exploiting the poor, I don't think that that concept influences much of his essay. He acknwoledges that the lower class must be poor in order for there to be such wealth in the upper classes, but that may not be necessarily because of exploitation, consciously anyway. The comfort and luxury of being part of the upper class is enough for the rich to justify a willful ignorance of what is really happening, but I think Mantsios implies more that the rich are choosing bot to help, rather than intentionally taking advantage of the poor.

One reason that the rich tend to get richer and the poor stay generally the same is that industry is designed to generate maximum profit. As incomming capital increases, the top (wo)men get hearty raises, while those who actually did the labor get the same pay check they had been getting. Now that nation's wealth has increased, prices on goods also increase. Now the big business is putting even more into the pockets of its CEOs, and the working people can't afford to buy the products they built.

Wow, now that I wrote that out it does sound an awful lot like exploitation.

Mantsios also discusses the issues with internal bias and what people are born as, race and gender in particular. For most, to discriminate against people because of race or gender is an unconscious exploitation. The person isn't necessarily aware of why they treat some people differently, or even aware of their change in behavior. Because there is no way to completely avoid stereotypes and snap-judgements based on people's appearance, there will never be a world in which all people have perfectly equal opportunity.