# Debate the only sound, non-racist argument for immigration control I've ever read **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 8, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822 "2013-05-08T17:34:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/1 "2013-05-08T17:34:52Z")
The most serious reason to limit immigration to the U.S. that I have yet encountered is the one [Michael Lind](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lind) (emphatically no racist or xenophobe – in fact he looks forward to a blended-race “TransAmerican Nation”) often gives: Unrestricted immigration only serves the interest of the overclass in holding down working Americans’ wages, etc. Lind wants America to become an all-middle-class society, and a constant inflow of low-skill manual workers just holds us back from that; therefore, he believes we should select for high-skill/education immigrants and discourage others. See this article of his from 2010, [“Open Borders or High-Wage Welfare State.”](http://www.salon.com/2010/05/04/immigration_open_borders_welfare_state/) Nor is Lind indifferent to the immigrants’ plight – see this article from this year, [“Immigration, Yes. Indentured Serfdom, No.”](http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/immigration_yes_indentured_serfdom_no/) (Note that this argument has nothing to do with the environmental effects of immigration; apparently Lind is under no illusion that immigration and overpopulation are somehow related problems, or that the environmental effects of overpopulation stop at any national border. Nor has it anything to do with our “culture” being overwhelmed, or immigrants being crime-prone or carrying leprosy, etc., etc.) Does anyone see any counterarguments? ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/2 "2013-05-08T17:41:03Z")
I’m more interested in which one you’d do away with, the open borders or the high wage welfare state? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/3 "2013-05-08T18:36:08Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > I’m more interested in which one you’d do away with, the open borders or the high wage welfare state? The open borders, certainly; **if** I were convinced that would actually help maintain the high-wage welfare state; but I’m only half-convinced. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/4 "2013-05-08T18:48:20Z")
> [@](#): > > Unrestricted immigration only serves the interest of the overclass in holding down working Americans’ wages, etc. This is only a valid argument if you actually believe in things like the ‘overclass’…or that it’s low wage immigrants holding down the wages (along with the ‘overclass’ of course) of good, hard working ‘mericans. I’m not seeing how this isn’t racist, however, since the implications is that those dirty immigrants are holding back the wages of those hard workin’ 'mericans at the behest of, I assume a ‘white’ ‘overclass’. Though I’m sure it’s couched is suitable loony lefty rhetoric about class or some equal nonsense. > [@](#): > > Lind wants America to become an all-middle-class society, and a constant inflow of low-skill manual workers just holds us back from that; Sure it does. Let’s not even touch on the ridiculousness of a single class system, or how the US could ever maintain something like that when trade is open and free. Let me guess…we become an isolationist psudo-communist country that has no trade or dealings with the outside world, while we live in the workers paradise. Look how well that works out for the North Koreans, after all. 😛 > [@](#): > > therefore, he believes we should select for high-skill/education immigrants and discourage others. I’m sure. Gee, never heard anything like THIS before… > [@](#): > > See this article of his from 2010, “Open Borders or High-Wage Welfare State.” Um, no…I don’t think I have the stomach for it this week. You’ve most likely already summarized it anyway, and doesn’t seem the sort of thing to take very seriously from where I’m sitting. > [@](#): > > Does anyone see any counterarguments? It’s basic racism couched in terms to make it palatable to left wingers with an equal inability to grasp reality, but who want to believe that it’s those dirty immigrants keeping us back…but, you know, we don’t mean those brown kinds (we ARE lefties after all), so we just mean the unskilled ones that we will select out and only let in the high skill ones who will fit into the classless overmind groupthink thingy we are building (what we will do with the home grown losers, under achievers or simply those who don’t want to fit in to the new, sole middle class remains to be seen, but there are always those reeducation training camps…) ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/5 "2013-05-08T18:52:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Lind wants America to become an all-middle-class society So in an all-middle-class society, who’s mowing the lawns, picking the grapes, shingling the roofs, flipping the burgers, and minding the corner store? ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/6 "2013-05-08T18:56:48Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > So in an all-middle-class society, who’s mowing the lawns, picking the grapes, shingling the roofs, flipping the burgers, and minding the corner store? Those jobs will all be paying middle-class wages, of course! ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/7 "2013-05-08T18:58:46Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > So in an all-middle-class society, who’s mowing the lawns, picking the grapes, shingling the roofs, flipping the burgers, and minding the corner store? Or performing the heart surgeries, or managing the Fortune 500 companies, or arguing in the courts, or playing in the Super Bowl? If the extra schooling, work, and talent it takes to achieve those things isn’t rewarded, why bother? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/8 "2013-05-08T19:02:53Z")
I would be all for open borders if we could handle the associated issues, security, social costs, etc. But we can’t, so we must be somewhat selective. But we need immigration, we always have. The menial labor of this generation gives birth to the educated, motivated, machinery of progress that has made this country what it is. I worked my way up from nothing\*, as did my parents\*, and their parents before them, there’s nothing wrong with the next generation of immigrants doing the same thing. As for the ‘overclass’, the running dog lackeys of the imperialist warmongers will always be with us. We shouldn’t further convolute our decision making process just to spite them. \*nothing except for decent educations for my parent’s and my generation. We certainly don’t offer the educational opportunities we once did. My father grew up in the depression dirt poor but was able to get a bachelors degree at Queens College in NY virtually for free. The overclass we should be concerned with are the schools that have made a decent education out of the range of the average person. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/9 "2013-05-08T19:46:00Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Those jobs will all be paying middle-class wages, of course! Pretty much that, actually, ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/10 "2013-05-08T20:05:22Z")
So everyone will be above average? This kind of usage makes a good example of why “middle class” is one of those Humpty-Dumpty terms that means whatever the user wants it to mean. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/11 "2013-05-08T20:13:56Z")
God, you Dopers are dopes. It’s patently obvious that all the Latinos (let’s call a spade a spade) who have immigrated to the US have depressed wages at the low end of the scale. Crying “racism” about it doesn’t change a thing. It’s also patently obvious there’s an overclass. Who the hell do you think the One Percent are? What do you call the people who own the bulk of the wealth in the US if not an overclass? We live in the greatest wealth inequality in American history. Of COURSE there is an overclass. I’m all for immigrants coming to America and making good, it’s good for them, good for us. But there is absolutely no reason in the world that we HAVE to accept immigrants, just because they want to come here. Is anyone in this thread making that claim? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/12 "2013-05-08T20:52:13Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > God, you Dopers are dopes. But they can make their case without insulting people. Try that next time. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/13 "2013-05-08T20:52:50Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > It’s also patently obvious there’s an overclass. Who the hell do you think the One Percent are? What do you call the people who own the bulk of the wealth in the US if not an overclass? We live in the greatest wealth inequality in American history. Of COURSE there is an overclass. It’s an American thing; admitting that there are class issues in America smacks of… **Communism!!** _\_ So we’re all supposed to _ignore_ the obvious. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/14 "2013-05-08T21:02:18Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] I’m all for immigrants coming to America and making good, it’s good for them, good for us. But there is absolutely no reason in the world that we HAVE to accept immigrants, just because they want to come here. Is anyone in this thread making that claim? [/QUOTE] Well yeah…I am. I’m all for immigrants coming here, full stop, without all the…um…overtones of your post. Frankly, I have no idea why ‘they’ should be kept out, or why ‘just because they want to come here’ isn’t a good enough reason, but I’m sure it has to do with your more sensitive lefty perspective on it all. 😛 > [@](#): > > God, you Dopers are dopes. It’s patently obvious that all the Latinos (let’s call a spade a spade) who have immigrated to the US have depressed wages at the low end of the scale. Crying “racism” about it doesn’t change a thing. My ‘Latinos’ folks came to this country without a dime to their name and with very few skills…they didn’t even speak English. My dad built his own business and became one of those 1%er overclass guys, and every one of my brothers and sisters, including my own humble self, makes more than the national average both in terms of individual salaries and family income…in fact, for my part, I make more by myself and not including my wife’s salary than the national average for a family in the US. Just pointing out that when you paint with a broad brush, it sort of shows your own colors. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/15 "2013-05-08T21:08:39Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It’s an American thing; admitting that there are class issues in America smacks of… **Communism!!** _\_ > > So we’re all supposed to _ignore_ the obvious. To 9/11 CTers it’s obvious that the WTC was brought down in a controlled demolition \ as well. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/16 "2013-05-08T21:43:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Unrestricted immigration only serves the interest of the overclass in holding down working Americans’ wages, etc. Lind wants America to become an all-middle-class society Does Lind care about the rest of the world, or just America? If it’s true that unrestricted immigration to the US would hold down working Americans’ wages, is this because “low” wages in the US are still higher than what immigrants could be making in their home country? Would it result in a higher average wage worldwide, even if it lowered wages in the US? If I tried hard enough, I bet I could read racism into an argument that only considers a policy’s effects on the US and not on people (many of them non-white) in the rest of the world. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/17 "2013-05-08T21:51:24Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > It’s patently obvious that all the Latinos . . . who have immigrated to the US have depressed wages at the low end of the scale. Actually. That is not “patently obvious” although I have no doubt that it is fervently believed. Latinos with poor education or English language skills tend to acquire jobs in two categories: - genuinely low-paying jobs (paid-under-the-table gardening, maid service, food service, baby-sitting, etc.), for which they are generally only beating out other immigrants, anyway, as Americans were already avoiding them; - manual labor jobs that domestic people were already failing to fill: construction workers, cowboys, etc. In this category, they may have a depressive effect on the over all wages paid, but not to the extent that they are freezing Americans out of the market. When the building trades crashed a few years ago, large numbers of the immigrants went home for lack of work. When the INS raided the various meat-packing plants and the occasional credit card centers in the nation’s center a few years ago, there was no sudden surge in American employment in those companies; nor was there a sudden surge in wages to attract more Americans. I will not claim that you cannot make your argument, but your “patently obvious” claim is patently not obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/18 "2013-05-08T22:24:29Z")
> [@XT](#): > > To 9/11 CTers it’s obvious that the WTC was brought down in a controlled demolition \ as well. 😛 That analogy would only work if for weeks before 9-11 hundreds of workers had been seen going into the WTC with large crates marked DANGER: EXPLOSIVE, wiring them into place while people watched, and Osama bin Laden pressed the detonator on live TV. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/19 "2013-05-08T23:03:45Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That analogy would only work if for weeks before 9-11 hundreds of workers had been seen going into the WTC with large crates marked DANGER: EXPLOSIVE, wiring them into place while people watched, and Osama bin Laden pressed the detonator on live TV. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822/20 "2013-05-08T23:12:35Z")
> [@XT](#): > > This is only a valid argument if you actually believe in things like the ‘overclass’…or that it’s low wage immigrants holding down the wages (along with the ‘overclass’ of course) of good, hard working ‘mericans. I’m not seeing how this isn’t racist, however, since the implications is that those dirty immigrants are holding back the wages of those hard workin’ 'mericans at the behest of, I assume a ‘white’ ‘overclass’. Though I’m sure it’s couched is suitable loony lefty rhetoric about class or some equal nonsense. 1. :dubious: It is not racist to point out that unskilled or semiskilled immigrant labor, legal or illegal, is generally cheaper than native-born labor; and that, therefore, the availability of a very large supply of immigrant labor in the marketplace may have some depressive effect on the native-borns’ wages and benefits and job security. 2. Eh? Oh, the “white overclass” is actually a distinctly **non** -lefty theme in Lind’s case, dating at least from his 1995 book [_The Next American Nation._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Next_American_Nation:_The_New_Nationalism_and_the_Fourth_American_Revolution) (Wherein he also lambastes affirmative action and multiculturalism, by the way.) > [@](#): > > Understanding the white overclass requires revising the most common misconceptions about class. The discussion of social class has been confused for generations by Marxist thinkers, who made the mistake of completely identifying class with economic function. Like the Marxists, old-fashioned American liberal pluralists tend to misunderstand class. What they refer to as class is typically not a social class at all, but a mere occupational or income category, such as service-sector workers or millionaires. Meanwhile, the New Left which came to prominence in the sixties has tended to drop the idea of class altogether, in favor of race and gender. . . . In recent years, conservative ideologues have added further confusion by defining political factions and lifestyle subcultures as classes. . . . > > In order to think about class in twenty-first century America, we must first clear our minds of these Marxist, liberal, New Left, and conservative definitions of class, and return to the older notion of class found in classical and European political thought from Aristotle to Montesquieu. > > A class is a group of families, united by intermarriage and a common subculture, whose members tend to predominate in certain professions and political offices, generation after generation. Note that the class – the group of similar families – has an existence independent of the offices which its members tend to hold. Indeed, we cannot talk intelligently about class unless we make a distinction between a social class and a mere institutional elite. Those who talk about “the political class” or, with C. Wright Mills, about “the power elite,” are confusing two very different things. Every modern society, even the most perfectly egalitarian, will have an institutional elite – top civilian politicians, military officers, judges, diplomats, financial and industrial executives, publishers, editors and leading intellectuals, clerical leaders, and so on. The subject of class is raised only when you examine the social origins of the particular individuals who hold office in the institutional elite or elites. Learning the organization of judicial offices in a country tells you nothing about class. However, if you find out that most of the judges tend to come from old-money families in a particular region of that country, and that most attended one of half a dozen schools, then you have learned something important about that country’s class system. > > The United States at the end of the twentieth century has both an institutional elite and a dominant social class. The institutional elite is composed of upper-level officials in the federal and state governments, plus executives and professionals in the concentrated private sector and foundation and university executives (low-level government officials and small business owners are not part of the institutional elite). Almost all of the members of the American institutional elite also happen to be members of a single social class: the white overclass. To put it another way, the labor pool from which most elite positions are filled is the white overclass. The overlap is not complete. Though most members of the institutional elite belong to the white overclass, most members of the white overclass are not part of the institutional elite (since the overclass greatly outnumbers the elite); and – though this is uncommon – a person can become a high-ranking politician, military officer, judge, CEO, foundation president, or university president in the United States without having been born into the white overclass. It is possible to imagine a United States in which most members of the institutional elite did not have similar class origins. But that is not the country in which we live. > > . . . The white overclass is the child of the former Northeastern Protestant establishment, produced by marriage (not only figurative but literal) with the upwardly mobile descendants of turn-of-the-century European immigrants and white Southerners and Westerners. Unlike the Northeastern establishment . . . this relatively new and still evolving political and social oligarchy is not identified with any particular region of the country (though it is concentrated in East and West Coast metropolitan regions). Nor does the white overclass dominate other sections through local, surrogate establishments, as the Northeastern establishment once did. Rather, overclass Americans are found in the higher suburbs of every major metropolitan area, North and South, coastal and inland. Unlike the sectional elites of the past, members of the white overclass are not even identified with the regions in which they happen (temporarily) to live. The white overclass, homogeneous and nomadic, is the first truly national upper class in American history. > > The white overclass is the product, not merely of the amalgamation of Anglo- and Euro-Americans, but of the fusion of the rentier and managerial-professional classes. This blurring of the upper and upper-middle strata is a relatively new development in the United States. In earlier generations, there were distinct landowning and rentier classes, with their own lifestyles and institutions – cotillions, seasons spent in the country, and the like. The elaborate rituals that governed upper-class life, such as dressing for dinner, were designed to conspicuously display wealth, including a wealth of leisure time. That was a long time ago. There is a class, or rather a category, of the clebrity rich, and there are still pockets of old-fashioned rentiers in the U.S. – in Virginia, there are still planters who do not work and who hunt foxes with hounds – but these subcultures are detached from the summits of power. Members of the upper class who want to make a mark in the world tend to adopt the style of life and dress and speech of the managerial-professional elite. Even though they do not have to, most members of the small hereditary upper class go to college and get executive or professional jobs, and work, or at least pretend to. Instead of serving as a model for well-to-do executives and lawyers and investment bankers, the hereditary segment of the American overclass conforms to the segment immediately below it, the credentialed upper middle class. > > . . . The composition of student bodies at Ivy League schools is a good surrogate for the composition of the white overclass. If you factor out black and Hispanic students admitted under affirmative action programs, you ar lef with a student body that is disproportionately of British or German-Scandinavian Protestant and European Jewish descent. There are relatively few evangelical Protestants and Catholics in the overclass, despite their significant numbers in the general population. If you are Episcopalian or Jewish, have a graduate or professional degree from an expensive university, work in a large downtown office building in an East or West Coast metropolis, watch MacNeil/Lehrer on PBS, and are saving for a vacation in London or Paris, you are a card-carrying member of the white overclass, even if your salary is not very impressive. If you are Methodist, Baptist or Catholic, have a B.A. from a state university, work in or for a small business or for a career government service, watch the Nashville Network on cable, and are saving for a vacation in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Branson, Missouri, or Orlando, Florida (Disneyworld), you are probably not a member of the white overclass – no matter how much money you make. > > Although there are residual religious and ethnic differences among members of the white overclass, these are minor compared to what they have in common. There is, for example, a common white overclass accent, which is more or less identical in corporate boardrooms from one end of the continent to another – the “NBC standard,” which is the equivalent of BBC English or Britain’s Received Pronunciation (RP). As formerly distinct local elites have fused into a single national ruling class equally at home in New York and Texas and California, this accent has become the badge of elite status. In order to advance in overclass circles in America, a white American has to suppress any regional or ethnic dialect, whether it be a Southern drawl or a Boston honk or Brooklynese, and learn to speak this flat, clipped, rather nasal version of English. . . . > > . . . The overclass eats pate and imported cheeses; the middle class eats peanut butter and Velveeta. The overclass sips wine; the middle class drinks beer. The overclass plays squash and tennis; the middle class plays pool and bowls (both golf, but the middle class does so at second-tier country clubs and public courses). The overclass jogs; the middle class does not. . . . These are cliches, but they are a better guide to the real class structure in the United States than income categories in the census or pseudoscientific sociological measures like the SES (socioeconomic survey). And, relating all that to the subject of race relations: > [@](#): > > The chief danger confronting the twenty-first century United States is not [geographical/regional] Balkanization but what might be called Brazilianization. By Brazilianization I mean not the separation of cultures by race, but the separation of races by class. As in Brazil, a common American culture could be indefinitely compatible with a blurry, informal caste system in which most of those at the top of the social hierarchy are white, and most brown and black Americans are on the bottom – forever. Behind all the boosterish talk about the wonders of the new American rainbow is the reality of enduring racial division by class, something that multicultural education initiatives and racial preference policies do not begin to address. Note that while he calls it the “white overclass,” because it is mostly white, it does **not** include the majority of white Americans. (It does include pretty much all of the 1%, as a subset.) There are also black and Latino overclasses, which might merge with the white overclass by intermarriage in the future and might even be starting the process now; but at present they remain distinct from the white overclass, and differentiated from it by being for the most part salaried dependents upon it, lacking its wealth-and-power base. Note that in this analysis, though one’s class status is strongly associated with a given income range, class status is not strictly a function of income. (E.g., an overclass person who loses his money still has his family, education, acculturation, friends, connections. Might bounce back. Better chance of being rich again than you have of being rich ever.) Social classes are social-and-associating entities that marry predominantly (not necessarily strictly) within themselves. Classes are sometimes coterminous with, but not identical to, ethnic groups, which may also be endogamous. You can work your way into a higher class, sort of, but classes culturally absorb the children of newcomers. (E.g., in the 19th Century, the old British landowning gentry intermarried with the rising commercial and industrial rich, and turned them into fair copies of gentry, in their manners and morals. In the formation of the American white overclass, it worked the other way – the rising managerial/professional class absorbed and transformed the old-money rentier class.) In the case of the present American overclass, it happens-to-be-white, that is, its cultural roots are Anglo-American all around. But it has welcomed Jews as full members by now, more or less, and there’s free intermarriage. And maybe in the future it will widen further and become a mixed-race overclass. But that wouldn’t be much improvement. The problem is the **existence** of an effectively hegemonic ruling class in a democracy, because, even with good will, and even with a membership encompassing a broad range of the political spectrum, such a class cannot help but serve its own interests even at the expense of other classes’. (No actual class-conspiracy need be postulated; it is simply a matter of a large number of people with certain economic interests in common acting, on their own and more often than not, in defense of those interests – that pulls them all in more or less the same direction, and the effect is the same as if they actually acted in conscious concert.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-the-only-sound-non-racist-argument-for-immigration-control-ive-ever-read/657822.md?page=2)