For four decades, my father worked as a truck driver but never identified himself as working class.
He returned home smelling of grease and labor, unleashing colorful curses toward New York drivers that would make Andrew Dice Clay blush. I found myself laughing out loud while my shocked mother cooked dinner.
Yet if you had asked Philosopher-Truck Driver John Ring to describe himself, “labor” wouldn’t be his answer. Instead, he’d say, “A guy who’s doing all right, and whose kid is going to do better.”
He nailed it. From a kitchen table in New Jersey, his child went on to teach bankers across America, Europe, and Asia. No one in DC controlled my fate. “Da Union” never weighed in. A nation indifferent to my father’s background gave his son the chance to aim high.
So when that Steinbeck quote about “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” appeared on my screen this weekend, I smiled as usual.
But this was the first time I verified it—and to my disappointment, it was misquoted.
The Quote That Isn’t
In June 1960, Steinbeck wrote an essay for Esquire titled “A Primer on the Thirties,” where he described middle-aged Communists he’d met during the Depression who treated revolution like a casual hobby, akin to playing bridge. He concluded there were no openly admitted proletarians in America, insisting everyone was a “temporarily embarrassed capitalist.”
Capitalist. Not millionaire.
While Steinbeck mocked these Communists, he also captured a distinctively American trait: the unwillingness to accept a fixed place in society.
It’s unfortunate that this quote is so often misstated, because Steinbeck’s actual words are far more compelling. (Similarly, I’m disheartened every time I recall how Jefferson replaced “private property” with “the pursuit of happiness.” Although less poetic, “private property” would have curtailed debates about socialism from the start.)
The version circulating on Facebook originates from Ronald Wright, a Canadian author, who in his 2004 book A Short History of Progress paraphrased Steinbeck from memory, swapped “capitalist” for “millionaire,” and appended a line about socialism never taking root. The internet then spread this altered version widely.
This change is significant because where Steinbeck described a population unwilling to accept social hierarchy, Wright transformed it into a people unaware of their social station.
I side with Steinbeck—and so do the statistics.
The Waiting Room
Clearly, America does not operate under a rigid class system.
In such systems, one’s birth typically dictates one’s death position; the doors remain locked from the inside.
So what is America? It’s more like a waiting room.
In this waiting room, you might sit a long time, then your name gets called. Or, as my friend James Altucher says, maybe you “choose yourself.”
Economists Mark Rank (Washington University) and Thomas Hirschl (Cornell) tested this by tracking income data for the same American households over 44 years, from ages 25 to 60.
By 60, roughly 70% had spent at least one year in the top 20% of earners. Over half made it into the top 10% for at least a year. And more than one in nine—around 11%—had reached the top 1% at some point.
One in nine. Not too shabby at all…
But here’s the flip side that makes it a waiting room rather than an exclusive club: fewer than one in 160 Americans stayed in the top 1% for a continuous decade.
The wealthy come in and out. The door swings both directions. Perhaps that’s the real source of discomfort surrounding social mobility.
So my father’s perspective wasn’t naive. He understood the odds.
Is It Still Possible?
But is that door still open? That’s the crucial question.
UBS reported 23.6 million American millionaires at the end of 2025—more than 40% of the global total, despite the US comprising only about 4% of the planet’s population. Last year alone, the nation added 440,000 new millionaires—roughly 1,200 daily.
However, UBS also found that median wealth for the typical American declined around 20% after adjusting for inflation since 2020. The top tier expanded while the bottom rungs became less affordable—a reality experienced by many in everyday inflation.
Still, Americans filed over half a million new business applications in August, a pattern consistent nearly every month since 2021. They apply for EINs because they consider themselves capitalists awaiting their turn.
Mises argued that consumers hold ultimate power and entrepreneurs serve them, without restriction to any specific origin. Hayek emphasized that no planner can predict who will be the next success, underscoring the necessity of open opportunity. Right now, the founder of the next iconic American company waits in that room. We just don’t know who they are yet.
The Virtue in the Joke
Neither misplaced confidence, blind optimism, nor sheer folly explains why this hope persists.
Aquinas defined hope as the yearning for a future good that is difficult yet achievable.
Not simple or guaranteed, but attainable. He noted that hope’s adversaries are despair, saying it’s impossible, and presumption, acting as though it’s already certain.
The “temporarily embarrassed” American balances between these extremes—aware they haven’t succeeded but believing it’s still possible. “Yet” carries immense weight, as in “He hasn’t made it yet.” That’s what sustaining faith entails.
Taleb calls this “optionality.” A nation full of people convinced they’re one breakthrough away from fortune continues purchasing metaphorical cheap options on themselves. Most expire worthless, but the few winners fund everything else. (Given Elon Musk’s payment of over $10 billion in taxes in a single year, this isn’t exaggeration.)
And politicians are well aware of this dynamic!
No matter the party, their coalition is vast and restless. They tax, regulate, and complicate the ascent.
Yet any leader attempting to bar the door risks undermining the foundation of the entire system: the belief that the next person summoned could be you. The appeal to envy has been America’s political tool for a century, but it repeatedly loses to the guy in the work shirt convinced he’s holding his own.
Wrap Up
Steinbeck observed America’s harshest decade—Dust Bowl, bread lines, and the Okies immortalized in his novels. He saw a people who stubbornly refused to claim a class identity. To him, that was the most American trait of all.
He was right then, and today’s data backs him up. Yes, the price to enter that door has increased, and I will continue exploring who raised it. But it remains open, swinging both ways.
My father never became a millionaire. He never thought of himself as one, nor did he care. He simply knew the room he occupied had a door—and that his child would walk through it.
He was right about that, too.
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