Reading through this thread, I can't help but think that Stanley Elkin got everything right when he wrote George Mills. The blurbs and reviews of George Mills often reduce it to being about the failures of the 99%, but I think it is more about why the 1% succeeds and the answer is fairly simple, because the 99% wants the 1% to succeed, it absolves them of all culpability. This is modern (contemporary) life, absolution. George Mills seems to only increase in relevance as far as I can see, but it only recedes in relevance in the eyes of the public because it offers no scapegoats.

This time it is different, right? The first George Mills was correct in believing that, but we don't live in his times.