• EhForumUser@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    That was just a line to keep the proles subservient and waiting.

    Huh? The trickle down line comes from comedian Will Rogers who was making a joke about how President Hoover, who was an engineer, was accustomed to water trickling down, but that he didn’t realize money trickles up.

    It was a line to serve the exact opposite – to tell the ‘proles’ that the economic plan was fundamentally flawed.

    • teuast@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      1 year ago

      yeah, but it was repurposed for that. “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” also has its origins in a saying referring to something that is impossible, but was later repurposed into having the opposite connotation for most people.

      • jonne@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        1 year ago

        Also when conservatives quote MLK about ‘judging people by the content of their character’, and nothing else.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      Thanks. I learned something. I grew up hearing it discussed seriously in the 1980s, by which time I’m not sure everyone remembered the critical origin you identify. As I remember it, during the Reagan/Thatcher years many people treated the matter of whether and how the wealth would trickle down as a real live question.