When the middle class began to contact it created what Eric Hoffer (The True Believer) called the new poor, a most destabilizing force. The trouble is that the new poor often blame the wrong folks, or at least they take out their fears and frustrations on the wrong people — the “other.” This is mostly because the other is a handy and easier target, and because one is always hardwired to fear and hate the other. And so goes the violence of history.