I was taught by a "no bullshit" marxist at undergrad, that they were.

Today I saw this in the paper

"In 1978, the typical male US worker was making $48,000 a year (adjusted for inflation). Meanwhile the average person in the top 1% was making $390, 000. By 2010, the median wage had plummeted to $33,000, but at the top it had nearly trebled, to $1,100,000".

And stopped to think.

If I were in the top 1% I don't think I would be alienated, at all!

It is not that I have a "price", and that I would forgo my values for an income like that, but if I had that much, and felt at all like I earnt it, I (perhaps) do not see what atrocity I would not indulge in to keep things that way. 

Startling! And we (might, idly) wonder why social democrats aren't communists?