How many social classes are there in the United States?

Great Debates
21

The socio-cultural differences are obvious. Working-class black Americans speak a different dialect of English than working-class whites. They belong to different churches, mostly all-black churches. They usually live in black-majority neighborhoods. Even today, they rarely marry outside their racial group. Most of a black’s friends will be black, at least at the working-class level. The blacks have their own distinctive cuisine, customs, myths. “It’s a black thing, you wouldn’t understand.”

To point up a contrast, American Jews have become much more assimilated to mainstream culture. Forty or even thirty years ago Jews, even the wealthiest of them, formed a separate, parallel social class from the Anglo-Saxon elite. They had their own distinctly Jewish educational institutions, organizations, law firms and financial companies. They were not welcome in respectable hotels, they were not welcome in most elite country clubs, and they were only grudgingly welcome in Ivy League schools. An elite Anglo who married a Jew would risk ostracism, even from his or her immediate family. None of these things are true any longer. The Jews have kept their religion and some of their customs, but they are now full, unconditional members of American society, and rich Jews are full, unconditional members of the white overclass, with free intermarriage back and forth. Blacks – at all class levels – have a long way to go before they reach that point.

22

I hate this debate. There is no class in America. If you want to see class go to India, you will find a pretty rigid class structure there. Or look at the Middle Ages of Europe, where there were real and distinct social classes of people. There is some remnant of this today, just look at House of Lords in England.

We do not have this, we have never had this yet people still keep talking about “class” using the word for one set of meanings while implying a connection to the other, older set of ideas. You just end up with a knotty epistemological mess, which is why class is so hard to define when concerning America, because it does not really exist.

23

*Originally posted by BrainGlutton *

Obvious at first glance, but let me address the following:

It is not obvious that working-class blacks speak a different dialect than working-class whites. Or rather, there’s a fairly wide range of dialects spoken by working-class whites versus those among working-class blacks. Think of a working-class white in rural Georgia with one living in an urban area of the Northeast.

Same applies to churches - contrast the working-class white Baptists of the south vs. the working-class white Catholics of the urban Northeast. Likewise for marrying outside one’s group (Baptist vs. Catholic), friends, cuisine, customs, and myths.

The point I’m getting at is why should we lump all working-class whites together as a group?

I should point out that I tend to agree with you that working-class blacks have distinctive socio-cultural differences from working class-whites, but only in the broadest general sense. There are distinct socio-cultural differences between whites and blacks, period (regardless of socio-economic status). Working-class blacks and blacks from other socio-economic groups have much more in common than whites from different socio-economic backgrounds. “It’s a black thing, you wouldn’t understand” applies to all blacks across all spectrums (in general).

A key here - why is this the case? To take your example, why is it that someone who is Jewish is much more readily accepted today into the overclass than blacks?

24

Okay, BrainGlutton. I directly challenge Lind’s analysis

Michael Lind’s concept of some coherent, white “overclass” is utter hogwash. He starts with Northeastern Protestants, then mixes in Southerners, Westerners, those of European Jewish descent, descendents of European (presumably non-Jewish) immigrants and the celebrity rich. Sounds pretty much like the only thing all the members of the white overclass have in common is that they’re white, and presumably have more money than the middle class.

That, I submit, is not a definition of a class. That is a demographic.

The fact is, this is a nation where “peckerwood” (thank you DanBlather) Bill Clinton should never even meet, much less have a chance, with suburban, Midwestern, upper-middle-class, former Goldwater Girl Hillary Rodham and where Colin Powell shouldn’t have had a chance of making General.

Too many people in this thread are trying to define class as a single thing – income, race, whatever.

The reality is that an untenured college instructor is “higher” class than a plumber with twice the annual income. On the other hand, an African-American college professor can still get randomly stopped by the police.

The class structure in the U.S. (and yes, I believe there is a class structure) is a jumble of sometimes contradictory mixtures of income, family history, race, education, religion. Attempts to oversimplify it are destined to fail.

25

That is because it does not exist. People are trying to define something that is not there and all that they are left with is a confused nothing.

26

Okay, maybe it doesn’t actually exist. That doesn’t mean that everyone doesn’t still act, and live their entire lives, like it does.

27

But the thing is… who the hell cares.

Let the hoity-toyts think their upper class. Big f***ing deal.

28

First you would have to define classes. Would you use income? Net worth? Education level? Race? Respectibility? Job title? Family tree?

Is a lawyer with a BMW making $80,000 a year in the same class as a roofing contractor with a pickup making $80,000 a year? Is a rapper who makes $20 million but then blows it all in the same class as a restarurant owner who retired with an accumulated $20 million in wealth?

How about a Harvard graduate who becomes a teacher or a state school graduate making $500,000 a year as a stockbroker?

There are too many variations to simply lump people into a nice neat class structure.

How do you think people become rich? Do you think it is all handed down from generation to generation.

29

I like the idea that a class is better defined by a majority of its members staying the same (in one way or another) through multiple generations, and marrying like people. Is kunilou more right to call this a demographic than a class? Does the fact that African Americans tend to marry the same make them a separate class?

The OP seems to find something interesting… the “overclass” sure is easy to define: Ivy League education, vacations in Europe, fox hunting, knowing what “The Hamptons” means, etc.

However, I think such things are considered a caricature of “Idle Wealth” more suited to “Masterpiece Theater” fiction than something rational wealthy people believe in. The rest of us wouldn’t consider such desires as being “Over” what we like.

And as to whether this topic is important… it sure is. Such labeling of people makes rational people nausiated, but politicians frequently exploit such fallacies to get elected. And the far left makes economic policies based on these lies, too.

-k

30

I have read references to several surveys that indicate that the vast majority of wealth is inherited. There are poeple who make thier own fortunes, they are a small minority.

So, yes, that’s how people become rich, it’s handed down from generation to generation.

31

I’ve heard the opposite, 80% earned, 20% inherited. Both need cites.

-k

32

That’s nice. How about a cite?

How are we determing wealth? A billion or above? Top 10%? Top 1%? How are we defining inherited? Did someone from a doctor family who then became a doctor, but used student loans and not his family’s money “inherit” it since he started out in a rich family or did he earn it himself? And what constitutes a small minority? Less than 10%? Less than 50%? Less than 25%?

33

In fact, I’m just going to do this myself.

According to this, of the 400 richest folks on the Forbes list, 42% inherited enough wealth to be on the list (of course, some like Philip Anschutz still made a lot more, he turned a $500 million inheritance into $5.2 billion).

31% of those started out as normal folks. The rest inherited some wealth between $1 million and $475 million and grew it into what they needed to achieve the list.

So that’s an idea.

I hardly think that 31% is a small minority.

34

It’s certainly not a majority.
And the sample size isn’t very big, 400 of the tippity top rich?
I’m not convinced yet of an iron ring around the wealth in this country.

-k

35

No, it’s just to give a vague idea.

36

Still, people who say “he’s rich 'cause his daddy’s rich” send me the message “Don’t work hard, you can’t win.”

-k

37

It doesn’t matter what message something sends you. What matters is the reality. And right now we live in an era where your economic status pretty much determines the quality of your education as a child. This, combined with the forces of tuition, pretty much determines your access to post-secondary education. It also determines the kind of educational support you are able to give your children (and thus the cycle continues). And while there are ways to "make it’ without college, those ways are pretty rare- rare enough to be discounted. Your pretty much out of the “professional” class without a degree, and the most you can hope for is “para-professional”, if you can afford trade school.

There are whole neighborhoods where, no matter how smart you may be, your chances of getting into a four-year university is next to nothing, and it has been that way for generations. I call that “class”. I guess I believe that class is largely a product of educaiton. One or two may get out. But just because a class is theoretically mobile doesn’t mean it is any less of a class.

And sticking your fingers in your ears and going “lallala this is America and anyone can be president (although nobody but fairly well off white men ever has been)” won’t change a single thing.

38

I think it would be foolish to argue that the surroundings a person is born into does not have an effect on their future status in life. An kid born into a working class neighborhood where everyone works in the local ball-bearing plant is probably more likely to end up working at the plant then the same kid born into a upper-middle class family where it’s basically understood that he will attend some kind of college and become a professional person like all the neighbors. I noticed this a lot in college where the students mostly came from upper-middle class and wealthy homes while the local population was mostly poor and middle-class steel workers.

Still, I would hesitate breaking America into hard and fast “classes”. It’s more like a spectrum of socio-economic status with Bill Gates at one end and some anonymous crackhead at the other.

I never understood what was wrong with wealthy men being president. Would we be better off if one of our nations fuck-ups led the country for awhile?

39

2 classes, those who believe they are responsible for themselves and their actions, and those who don’t. Despite all the injustices and social barriers, it has always always possible for a citizen of the US to better themselves.

40

Great, so now I’m a “fuck up” for being born to a poor single mother, succeeding academically enough to be one of the few people in my high school to go to a four-year college, and needing student loans to pay off the debt.

I guess my boyfriend is a “fuck up” for working in the non-profic sector where he can do work that he loves and that helps others, but that does not provide much oppertunity to get rich.

Becauwe the persuit of money is the only worthwhile thing to do, and not doing it (or not being able to do it) makes you a “fuck up”

Yep. That certainly disquailifies us from being president.