At the catered events and private parties, I wore various uniforms and carried around silver trays of beautifully shaped hors d’oeuvres that sat on topiaries to make them look even more cunningly alluring — which wasn’t necessary but was a thing in that time. I served and was invisible to precisely the characters you describe in your novel. They were younger, more beautiful, and more ambitious than I had ever been, more sure of their success than I had ever dreamed it was possible to be and at the same time trembling with anxiety that the vaunted appointments to fame and accolades and cash advances they believed were their inheritance would not in fact come to them because the world was already turning against them and they might be the last generation to die.

Only when we name our enemy can we confront it. Only when workers regard ourselves as a class can we access the great power that is available to us. The failures of an elitist, capitalist system have been amply demonstrated in these opening years of the 21st century. The time is now to organize ourselves toward something else.