Is there such thing as a "White American Overclass"?

In several other threads related to class or economics, Brain Glutton has posted the following excerpt from [The Next American Nation, by Michael Lind](The Next American Nation, by Michael Lind):

So is there a formal and exclusive “White Overclass” or is it just a cliche?

The whole commentary is too convoluted to comment on. What I distilled out of it is that “yuppies” are real which nobody ever denies. This comes from a person who came from a very poor area and a broken family, then went to an expensive private university, and then an Ivy League grad school. My wife and I converted to be Episcopalian when my first daughter was born. I suppose I qualify based on many of the definitions but my membership card doesn’t list many benefits that don’t apply to everyone that works hard and have a small degree of luck. I am still not sure how to “overclass” anyone in practical matters. I would love to learn though.

Playing the Devil’s advocate, the Kennedy’s and the Bushes do exist in the U.S. but we are only talking a microscopic portion of the population and they still do not have absolute power. The idea to make Caroline Kennedy a Senator because of birthrights is admittedly disgraceful but I will have to wait to see how that plays out before I make a judgment.

It’s fairly clear that it’s exclusive - look at the competition to gain access to the top level public and private universities, especially medical, law, and business schools. These schools, and the jobs they they make it possible for their graduates to take, define the overclass. It’s also worth noting that the overclass increasingly intermarries, and sequester their kids in either private schools or public schools in upscale districts.

Membership is also formally defined - primarily by job, education, and let’s face it, standardized test performance.

Part of the massive hate that descended on Sarah Palin was a result of she and her clan being NOKD with regard to the overclass.

There’s a lot of overlap betweens Lind’s definitions of American class and Paul Fussel’s book, Class. Lind’s Overclass is Fussel’s Upper Middle Class, roughly speaking.

I sort of get the point, but this guy is very sloppy, and I get the feeling that he’s kind of making stuff up in order to support an ulterior agenda. First, what exactly does he mean by “overclass”? It’s not ‘upper’ class, so what is it? Why not use the word class? Second, why use the word white, as he goes on to explain that most white people do not fall into the category. The term ‘white overclass’ carries the connotation of privilege of white people over those who are not white, but that is not in fact what he describes in this excerpt.

Not sure what “formal” would mean here. A “coat of arms” symbol that most folks in the country would recognize? A registry of family names that the FBI keeps track of?

There’s a “white overclass”?

Why wasn’t I issued a membership card and parking decal? :frowning:

The white overclass is the product, not merely of the amalgamation of Anglo- and

This part I find particularly interesting, because it represents a blending/blurring of what Fussel calls the Upper Class with the Upper Middle Class. Uppers, according to Lind, are giving up on acting like Uppers in order to ape the style of the Upper Middles.

Lind calls the Overclass white because whiteness is one of it’s key markers. Although he doesn’t appear to speak to the huge and growing East and South Asian components in the Overclass. I would argue, though, that even these folks are “white” in a way that blacks and Latinos aren’t.

A qualification. New York “white ethnic” speech (Brooklynese being one) is not nearly so stigmatized today as other accents, simply because so many academics and business leaders grew up speaking it and never bothered to lose it. Listen to (say) Robert Dallek, the historian, sometime (he does a lot of public TV).

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True.

And local accents can be a great help to politicians and trial lawyers.

If your work is primarily concerned with selling yourself - your skills, expertise, education, experience - to other members of the overclass, it helps to speak just like they speak.

OTOH, if your work involves selling yourself to regular folks, a more regional accent can be a benefit. Local folks can find the overclass accent off putting, hoity toity, etc.

Class aside, if you speak like the movers and shakers in your profession, that helps too. Nobody but an actor is going to learn a Brooklyn accent, but having one will lend you an intellectual kind of street cred in professions with large numbers of New Yorkers.

I’ve seen reports that race doesn’t have any effect on success once you account for income of the parents.

http://www.economica.ca/ew02_1p1.htm

The following source is more complete, and looks decent. It’s missing pages and graphs, but seems to be saying that if you factor in parent’s income, education, and the kids don’t flake out (e.g. out of a belief that they are screwed no matter what they do) and do continue on with their education then, again, you get pretty much the same probability of success as people of other races.

Now I wouldn’t be surprised if there is still a slight demerit even once you control for income, etc. But certainly it could be said that the gap is closing and possibly even closed. And no, there’s no particular reason to think there’s an overarching conspiracy to keep the black man down. Even if there was such a thing at one time, it seems to have passed and if non-white kids get just as much education and pushes to succeed, they’ll have every chance that everyone else does.

The Ivy League schools are full of Kennedys ,Bushs, Duponts ,and Rockefeller types. They arrive through legacy breaks. If you want to get in ,you have to be the best at your school. That makes us think the schools are full of people like that. W got an MBA. I am sure you are impressed . No school would dare flunk out a doping ,carousing ,drinking Bush.
The Ivies get better jobs,more money and faster promotions. They take care of themselves very well. The MBAs managed to bring the worlds economic system down and still do not have to answer for what they did. They skate away rich and powerful. They own us.

This has no connection to the OP. No one is talking about keeping anyone down. Not the point. At all.

And there’s this:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/19/national/main956890.shtml

Fair enough, but then the question is; what exactly is the overclass? What does it do?

BG quoted Lind so many times I had to go read the book, and if I can offer a criticism, the book provides little predictive value. Predictiveness is a key part of science; science must examine the evidence to predict the results of the next experiment. I’m simplifying for brevity, but Lind essentially says “These people are that class and these people are not” and there isn’t a lot of proof thereof, except his own definitions. That’s easy, though; I can set people up into any classes I want if I’m the one defining them.

What good is his personal definition of “the overclass”? Can it be established that his definition will be consistent over time in terms of who’s included in, or excluded from, the overclass? Lind claims the overclass drinks wine and vacations in different places, but so what? Some people drink wine and some drink beer; what does that tell us except that some drink wine and some drink beer?

I’m not saying it’s a purely No True Scotsman theory, but it sure leans that way. As quoted, one of the few predictive points he makes is that the “institutional elite” is primarily comprised of the overclass, but “Most positions of power are filled by rich white people” is

A) Not exactly a staggering discovery, and

B) By his own admission, not a universal truth, and so its value as an observation is questionable.

If we’ve determined that anyone of any race can get into it, then it’s not a “white” overclass. And if we’ve determined that anyone can get into any layer of income, including the top one, then it’s not an “overclass”.

Ergo, relevant.

And BrainGlutton and the Michael Lind are almost certainly bringing up the point of a hereditary overclass because such an overclass keeps the people down. That it’s a “white” overclass would almost certainly have been mentioned as an implication that they’ll particularly keep the black man down. True, that’s guesswork, but I’m not feeling too worried that the guess is a poor one.

No.

As it’s used by Lind, the term White is descriptive, not prescriptive. The question isn’t whether or not non whites can get in, the question is, What are the common characteristics of this class?

Lind’s argument has nothing to do with keeping black people down. That’s not the point. At all.

In fact, Lind plainly states that most white people are NOT members of the overclass. It’s not white vs black. It’s the overclass vs. everyone else, in Lind’s view.

If the overclass doesn’t keep people down and can be entered freely by anyone, then who the hell cares? That’s not even a “class”.

If you’re going to argue class politics which, your assertion aside, is the intent. That’s pretty well a non-starter.

That’s not true. You need to the include entire context of OP (meaning including “In several other threads related to class or economics, BrainGlutton has posted…”)

I think you’re incorrect about the relevancy of comments in this thread. Lind’s excerpt by itself may be “descriptive not prescriptive” as you say but that’s not the point. The point is that BrainGlutton has a history of left-leaning economic postings so Lind’s text must be reanalyzed as prescriptive hints for the purposes of this particular GD thread.

Please reread the OP (especially the text outside the Lind excerpt) and ask why the thread was started.

Maybe I’m also wrong and misinterpreted msmith537’s intentions. Maybe he actually wanted to start a purely “descriptive vs prescriptive” thread. But if that’s the case, we might as well all be starting descriptive GD threads that “the sky is blue” and wagging our heads in agreement. That doesn’t make a GD thread very much fun does it?

Not anyone can get in. In fact, most people can’t get in, if you accept Lind’s argument. Race isn’t the primary filter, though. Lind, who opposes affirmative action and ethnic identity politics in general, doesn’t see race per se as much of a filter at all. One of his repeated themes is the idea that Democrats get bogged down in ethnic grievance politics rather than focusing on the pursuit of left of center policies which could benefit everyone.

The basic argument is that members of the overclass perpetuate their advantages through intermarriage, access to private schools and elite colleges, networking, quid pro quo hiring and promotion. The overclass tends to make decisions, decisions which have a huge impact on everyone, based on its own self interest, not the interests of the majority.

It isn’t a question of keeping people down so much as it’s a question of ignoring the interests and concerns of everyone who isn’t like you.

I don’t agree with Lind’s position entirely, but I don’t want to see it misrepresented either.