"North Carolina is a Restricted Area nation with severe class stratification. When it was unsealed, the entire country was still a feudal empire. Although many years have passed and they've shed that backward system, the overall situation hasn't improved much. The class system is deeply ingrained. The upper class lives in luxury—better than you or I—while the lower class can't afford food or clothing, with an average life expectancy of less than forty-five years.
The upper class has never seen the lower class as human, not even as a labor force, but as livestock. The top 1% of the elite rich suck the blood of the 14% middle class and the 85% poor. That's the real reason North Carolina's leadership is so wealthy.
