Take a random sample of the top 1%, and you will find that less than 6 out of 10,000 were not born into the top 1%.

So, they let just enough people get ahead in order to sustain the myth... but no more.

Just one of the many myths perpetuated by the powers that be. It’s like the myth of the rugged individuals who settled the West without help. Except that they got land from government. Government sent the army to fight the people already there. Government built dams and subsidized railroads. They didn’t do it alone.

Of course. It’s a political myth that creates both high expectations and then a sense of failure if goals are not achieved.

So much so that the sense of anomie that it creates, in many cases, leads to juvenile criminality to retain a sense of worth in society and the various trajectories that emerge from that.

It is a huge myth. The poor people in the US think that they are just there temporarily, even though they may be the second or third generation.

Yes! But the rugged individual is only one of several American myths. That we are a Christian nation is another. That we're number 1 in everything that matters is another. That you don't love your country if you dare criticise it is yet another. (That last one only applies when Republicans hold the reins of government, of course.)
I have great respect for R.R. Robert Reich, that is, not Ronald Reagan, the erstwhile banner bearer for the myth of rugged individualism. Reagan was perfect for that role, having played tough guy cowboy characters in the movies. But just like the Hollywood cowboy image, it was bullshit. And guess what, "liberal" as an insult was another propaganda sale Reagan delivered very successfully. Many Americans had no precise understanding of what "liberal" even meant, but they knew by Reagan's derisive tone with which he repeatedly uttered, that "it" must be shameful. Such bullshit, indeed.

capitalism is a bunch of bullshit. it relies on ripping people off. so is banking. products and goods are supposed to be equally exchanged and the further we get away from that the more prone to corruption it becomes. have a skill or a craft or do some labor. trade that for food and shelter. directly. no hording money. money should have an expiration date so it has to be recycled back into the economy quickly.

Yup true