This was an honestly-held belief but sorry, Jack is certainly not as good as his master.
It is true that until the 1980s income disparity was small except for a very few very wealthy families.
In the 1960s a working man was doing well earning $2000 per year.
Mums did not have to work but many mothers were beginning the road to part-time work.
A working-class family could do fine on Dad's wages.
State house suburbs were the norm for many of us and we did not know any different until maybe we became teenagers and began to see class divisions as we attended college and university or entered the workforce.
Most families, if they had a car, it was a second-hand model going back to perhaps the 1940s or even earlier in some cases.
A bomb held together by rust, sheer will and Dad's mechanical skills.
Going to a faith-based private school from the age of 10 I do recall seeing things that reminded me that I was from a pretty humble home as were most of my friends who started at the same time as me.
But we shared our classrooms with the sons of diplomatic staff, doctors, lawyers, accountants and business-people.
We were the sons of labourers, factory hands, clerks and tradies.
Most of us walked or rode old bikes to school, used the bus or train with a free pass.
Those others were often dropped off by parents in very flash American and British cars, even the odd chauffeur on occasions.
Of course this did not amount to much in the playground and classroom where we were all treated equally, all caned with gay abandon by the religious order that ran our school.
Class differences were there in subtle ways though.
The sons of the middle classes and upwards were expected to remain at school, pass exams, hopefully with University Entrance accredited due to perhaps the odd kind word from the headmaster.
These boys were expected to attend university and do well with the assistance of their backgrounds and their family pedigrees and contacts.
The boys from working-class areas could probably do as well but parental expectations were slightly different.
Trades and public service careers were the choice of many working-class parents in those days.
Often could be heard from a father that a government job was a job for life. These people only wanted financial security and a solid career for their children.
Of course there were exceptions to the rule. Many from the upper end of town had very ordinary and unremarkable lives.
Many from those rough suburbs that should really be kept away from did remarkably well.
University graduates, successful businesspeople, they were bigger than their born station in life and by intelligence, talent and sheer willpower went places.
They did not necessarily have the family connections or pedigrees but they had other qualities.
All of the boys I went to school with who I am still in contact with from our humble suburb have transitioned from working class to at least middle-class lives.
They left behind possible lives in factories, labouring gangs and low-paid office and service work.
They were lucky. Many are not.
Nowadays I see a New Zealand different to those distant times.
We now have a non-working class, a working-class, a huge middle class and, while we have no inherited aristocracy in our land, there is a small but extremely wealthy and powerful upper class.
Writer and researcher Max Rashbrooke says just 1 per cent of New Zealanders control a quarter of all assets.
In New Zealand the word class means really "opportunity".
We are all born with potential opportunity but many also are denied opportunity by their family circumstances.
Kids from decile 1 schools will never have the opportunities available to children from decile 9 or 10 schools.
Decile 1 is usually in that rough part of town and is a public school.
The upper deciles are usually in the leafy suburbs, are private and expensive to attend. So parents need to have wealth.
Eventually that wealth goes to the kids to help buy a home or fund further study.
Not so in rented homes. Children in rented homes nowadays inherit little or no opportunity. Many will make opportunities anyway but most will not.
The class system is here to stay.
