John Steinbeck

Steinbeck enters Kyle’s notes as the originator of a single, recurring idea: the “Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires” framing. In the research behind the essay What Is An Extraordinary Man - Research, under “The Hollowing Out of The Middle Class,” Kyle records the attributed line — “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires” — using it to explain American workers’ identification with wealth rather than class grievance. The same attribution anchors the Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires concept page, where Steinbeck is named as the source of the phrase.

Context: John Steinbeck (1902–1968) was an American novelist and Nobel laureate known for The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and East of Eden, much of it focused on Depression-era working people. The popular “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” line is widely attributed to him, though it paraphrases rather than quotes his published work.

Where this appears

• Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires — credited as the source of the phrase in the concept’s definition.
• What Is An Extraordinary Man - Research — quoted in the middle-class section on why socialism didn’t take root in America.