Early Indicators:

there's a chilling message in John Kenneth Galbraith's latest work: there exists in the U.S. a "fortunate and favoured" elite with extraordinary power to influence events and set policy, whether at the voting booth, in government, or in Corporate America - using a smattering of statistics, many anecdotes, and his clever, hyperbolic style, the Harvard economist analyses how this elite gained strength in the 1980s and how unlikely it is to cede the rewards of its contented existence - espousing a short-term, self-interested mentality, it is threatening the economy's health and presiding over a polarization between haves and have-nots ... even the "scholars, journalists, and professional dissidents" who express sympathy for the excluded and underclass are pawns of the system who "by their dissent ... give a gracing aspect of democracy to the ruling position of the fortunate." -- [books, review "The Ruling Cash", Business Week, May11-1992, The Culture of Contentment, author John Kenneth Galbraith]