Equalitarian proposals threaten the meaning of working-class effort and sacrifice.

Evidence

Now in such a situation to suggest that men be equalized and the lower orders raised and one’s own hard-earned status given to them as a right and not a reward for effort, seems to them desperately wrong. In the words of my research assistant, David Sears, “Suppose the Marshall Plan had provided a block and tackle for Sisyphus after all these years. How do you think he would have felt?” Sokolsky, Woodside, and Dempsey have rolled the stone to the top of the hill so long, they despise the suggestion that it might have been in vain. Or even worse, that their neighbors at the foot of the hill might have the use of a block and tackle. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2261

Categorization

• SEED: The Sisyphus-block-and-tackle analogy is a striking image worth building an essay around on how fairness perceptions depend on the effort already sunk into status attainment.
• CANDY: The David Sears Sisyphus block-and-tackle quip is a memorable, tweetable formulation of why people resist equalization that would trivialize their past sacrifices.
• DEEPTHINKING: The whole excerpt captures something genuinely counterintuitive: people who sacrificed most to climb resent not the rich but the possibility that their climb was unnecessary, and that equality retroactively invalidates their suffering.
• XREF: connects to: Working-class people desire welfare-state measures while fearing equality itself. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 2139