# Is there such thing as a "White American Overclass"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 28, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975 "2008-12-28T17:26:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/41 "2008-12-29T12:34:06Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > Said documentary establishes that some kids inherit a lot of money, but not that they form a class, whatever that is. Have you watched it? The kids are encouraged to marry within their class (the better to preserve the wealth of that class, one presumes). They all belong to the same exclusive clubs. They all go to the same parties. If it is not a closed circle, it is something close to it. How are _you_ defining “class?” ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/42 "2008-12-29T14:49:59Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Have you watched it? The kids are encouraged to marry within their class (the better to preserve the wealth of that class, one presumes). They all belong to the same exclusive clubs. They all go to the same parties. If it is not a closed circle, it is something close to it. > > How are _you_ defining “class?” It seems to me the test is what will happen if, for example, the child of some internet billionaire wants to start hanging out in these circles. My guess is that such a person would be accepted as long as as he or she otherwise fit in. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/43 "2008-12-29T15:22:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > There is no significant difference so long as “over-” remains the operative prefix, which, in this year of Grace, it does. There is a subtle difference. There will always be a group of people who end up more successful or end up in positions with more power and more decision making responsibility. The difference is whether they have been prepared from birth to join this “overclass” or if they ended up part of it through hard work and ambition. And do you really need to be part of the Overclass to be successful? There are plenty of examples of successful and wealthy people who came from modest means. > [@brazil84](#): > > I think the signficiant difference is the amount of exclusivity. Is it more like a chess club or a (traditional) golf club? Not so much the exclusivity but the critieria for membership. Is it a chess club for the top players or just the players from the wealthiest parents? Does it exclude top players who are not the “right sort of people”? ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/44 "2008-12-29T16:13:42Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > There is a subtle difference. There will always be a group of people who end up more successful or end up in positions with more power and more decision making responsibility. The difference is whether they have been prepared from birth to join this “overclass” or if they ended up part of it through hard work and ambition. > > And do you really need to be part of the Overclass to be successful? There are plenty of examples of successful and wealthy people who came from modest means. I basically agree. There is a legend that in pre-revolution Iran, one needed to be from the “100 families” in order to achieve a position of high responsibility. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s what I would call an “overclass.” > [@](#): > > Not so much the exclusivity but the critieria for membership. Is it a chess club for the top players or just the players from the wealthiest parents? Does it exclude top players who are not the “right sort of people”? Right. To me, for a chess club to be analagous to a social class, it would have to exclude people who are good chess players, willing to pay the membership fee, but who aren’t from the “right” background. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/45 "2008-12-29T16:45:23Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > It seems to me the test is what will happen if, for example, the child of some internet billionaire wants to start hanging out in these circles. My guess is that such a person would be accepted as long as as he or she otherwise fit in. Seems to me that the terms “nouveau riche” and “new money” exist in our language to demark this sort of class distinction. If not, why do those terms survive? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/46 "2008-12-29T16:55:17Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Local folks can find the overclass accent off putting, hoity toity, etc. Not exactly. Overclass English is not the dialect once spoken by the Northeastern Establishment elite, it is the Midwestern dialect spoken by TV news anchormen. Which some still might find hoity-toity, I admit. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/47 "2008-12-29T16:57:24Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I haven’t read him. But I would find the chosen title of “white overclass” to be specifically provocative. If you’re going to invent provocative terms (speaking about Lind), I’m going to be hesitant about trusting your stated intentions. > > “WASP” is at least widely used . . . But inapposite. The overclass now (and only relatively recently) includes Jews, and other whites of non-Anglo-Saxon descent. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/48 "2008-12-29T17:04:57Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > “Formal” in the context of this discussion would mean that if you did not go to the right schools or grow up in the right towns, it would be nearly impossible for you to enter the White Overclass. You would be excluded from professional or educational opportunities. > > The question is, are people born into this supposed Overclass or is it just an amalgamation of the collective behavior people adopt in order to be successful in Corporate America? Behaviors such as: > -Going to the best schools you can get accepted to > -Dressing in a conservative and professional manner > -Participating in group activities, clubs and sports where you can develop your social skills and network > -Pursuing careers in lucrative or prestigious industries > -Hard work and discipline > -Losing regional dialects or accents so as not to appear provincial or uneducated > -Downplaying religeous or ethnic affiliations (Jews and Protestants aren’t usually particilarly evangelical about their religeon) > > In other words, it’s more of an overculture than a class, IMHO. From Fussell’s _Class:_ > [@](#): > > The special hazards attending the class situation in America, where movement appears so fluid and where the prizes seem available to anyone who’s lucky, are disappointment, and, following close on that, envy. Because the myth conveys the impression that you can readily earn your way upward, disillusionment and bitterness are particularly strong when you find yourself trapped in a class system you’ve been half persuaded isn’t important. When in early middle life some people discover that certain limits have been place on their capacity to ascend socially by such apparent irrelevancies as heredity, early environment, and the social class of their immediate forebears, they go into something like despair, which, if generally secret, is no less destructive. N.B.: Fussell is **not** calling for a social revolution or a classless society, only trying to glean insights of and direct more attention towards a very important subject that, in America, tends to be treated as irrelevant or best not mentioned. > [@](#): > > The former Socialist and editor of the _Partisan Review_ William Barrett, looking back thirty years, concludes that “the Classless Society looks more and more like a Utopian illusion. The Socialist countries develop a class structure of their own,” although there, he points out, the classes are very largely based on bureaucratic toadying. “Since we are bound . . . to have classes in any case, why not have them in the more organic, heterogenous and variegated fashion” indigenous to the West? And since we have them, why not know as much as we can about them? The subject may be touchy, but it need not be murky forever. Lind is not calling for a social revolution either. What he wants is to abolish race-based affirmative action and replace it with a far more vigorous (and expensive, and the overclass can damned well pay for it) battery of “social escalator” programs designed to lift the poor into the middle class. He also wants to break the disproportionate **political** power of the overclass through campaign-finance reform (no paid political advertising **at all).** Then we would still have a social pyramid, but the top and the bottom would be closer together than they are now. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/49 "2008-12-29T17:06:26Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Seems to me that the terms “nouveau riche” and “new money” exist in our language to demark this sort of class distinction. I think you are right. However, the group of people described in the OP are more properly described as a “subculture” (or an “overculture” if you will). Similarly for the group of kids profiled in _Born Rich_. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there is a bona fide upper class out there in parts of America. People who turn up their noses at the “nouveau riche.” However, if they exist, they aren’t really important in the way that the 100 Families of Iran were (supposedly) important. > [@](#): > > why do those terms survive? Besides the above, people might use them as a way to demean other people, even if those people are not excluded as they might have been in the past. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/50 "2008-12-29T17:09:52Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I think the signficiant difference is the amount of exclusivity. Is it more like a chess club or a (traditional) golf club? No, it’s a matter of **power,** not exclusivity. A class can maintain its existence as a class while admitting new members from below, as the gentry did in 19th-Century Britain by inviting the _nouveau riche_ to marry into their families and send their sons to their own elite public schools. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/51 "2008-12-29T17:18:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Lind is not calling for a social revolution either. What he wants is to abolish race-based affirmative action and replace it with a far more vigorous (and expensive, and the overclass can damned well pay for it) battery of “social escalator” programs designed to lift the poor into the middle class. Amen to this. If I may wax Jessie-Jackson-esque: If you want to reap the fruit you have to water the root. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/52 "2008-12-29T17:37:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, it’s a matter of **power,** not exclusivity. I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “matter of,” but anyway, you are free to define the word “overclass” any way you like. I see two problems with your apparent approach. First, if you define “overclass” in terms of power, then one can look at any nation or society, point at whatever people are at the top in terms of power, and say “aha! an overclass!” Given that every nation or society necessarily has an overclass (so defined), the term is rather meaningless. Second, most people understand the concept of “class” to carry some amount of exclusivity with it. e.g. a competent Iranian who can’t be promoted because he’s not from the 100 Families. So you are arguably doing a bit of a bait and switch. Of course, the OP’s quote doesn’t just talk about an “overclass,” it talks about a “white overclass.” And I suspect that this is the real grievance here. That the people with power and status in America come disproportionately from certain ethnic/cultural groups. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/53 "2008-12-29T20:12:35Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > First, if you define “overclass” in terms of power, then one can look at any nation or society, point at whatever people are at the top in terms of power, and say “aha! an overclass!” Given that every nation or society necessarily has an overclass (so defined), the term is rather meaningless. No, what you have is an **institutional elite,** which Lind carefully distinguishes from the overclass that provides most (not all) of its members. Re-read the excerpt in the OP. Barack Obama is part of the institutional elite, but not of the overclass; he might conceivably have married into it, but he didn’t. > [@brazil84](#): > > Second, most people understand the concept of “class” to carry some amount of exclusivity with it. e.g. a competent Iranian who can’t be promoted because he’s not from the 100 Families. So you are arguably doing a bit of a bait and switch. There **is** exclusivity to the overclass – it is not absolute, but it is real. Being born into the middle class makes ascension to the overclass, not impossible, but difficult; being born into the lower classes makes it all but impossible. Being born into the overclass makes it easy, practically inevitable, to remain there. And that is not because the overclass has some sort of membership committee, it is because it has distinctive ways and manners and speech, which are hard to acquire if not learned from childhood; and because for a lower-born person to achieve overclass status and think of marrying into an overclass family requires a **lot** of education and career success. Lind is entirely cognizant of individual social mobility in America – and of its **limitations,** which tend to be obscured by the pervasive myths that (1) America, uniquely, has always been a classless society anyway, and all Americans are really middle-class in some sense, and (2) class is purely a matter of wealth or economic function. From Fussell’s _Class:_ > [@](#): > > My researches have persuaded me that there are nine classes in this country, as follows: > > ## Top out-of-sight Upper Upper middle > > ## Middle High proletarian Mid-proletarian Low proletarian > > Destitute > Bottom out-of-sight > > **One thing to get clear at the outset is this: it’s not riches alone that define these clases. . . . “Economically, no doubt, there are only two classes, the rich and the poor,” says George Orwell, “but socially there is a whole hierarchy of classes, and the manners and traditions learned by each class in childhood are not only very different but – this is the essential point – generally persist from birth to death. . . . It is . . . very difficult to escape, culturally, from the class into which you have been born.” When John Fitzgerald Kennedy, watching Richard Nixon on television, turned to his friends and, horror-struck, said, “The guy has no class,” he was not talking about money.** > > * * * > > Not that the three classes at the top don’t have money. The point is that money alone doesn’t define them, for the way they have their money is largely what matters. . . . The main thing distinguishing the top three classes from each other is the amount of money inherited in relation to the amount currently earned. The top-out-of-sight class (Rockefellers, Pres, DuPonts, Mellons, Fords, Vanderbilts) lives on inherited capital entirely. . . . > > “When I think of a really rich man,” says a Boston blue-collar, “I think of one of those estates where you can’t see the house from the road.” Hence the name of the top class, which could just as well be called “the class in hiding.” Their houses are never seen from the street or road. They like to hide away deep in the hills or way off on Greek or Caribbean islands (which they tend to own), safe, for the moment, from envy and its ultimate attendants, confiscatory taxation and finally expropriation. . . . > > * * * > > The next class down, the upper class, differs from the top-out-of-sight class in two main ways. First, although it inherits a lot of its money, it earns quite a bit too, usually from some attractive, if slight, work, without which it would feel bored and even ashamed. It’s likely to make its money by controlling banks and the more historic corporations, think tanks, and foundations, and to busy itself with things like the older universities, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Foreign Policy Association, the Committee for Economic Development, and the like, together with the executive branch of the federal government, and often the Senate. . . . And secondly, unlike the top-out-of-sights, the upper class is visible, often ostentatiously so. . . . When you pass a house with a would-be impressive facade visible from the street or highway, you know it’s occupied by a member of the upper class. . . . > > * * * > > We now come to the upper-middle class. It may possess virtually as much as the two classes above it. The difference is that it has earned most of it, in law, medicine, oil, shipping, real estate, or even the more honorific kinds of trade, like buying and selling works of art. Although they may enjoy some inherited money and use inherited “things” (silver, Oriental rugs), the upper-middles suffer from a bourgeois sense of shame, a conviction that to live on the earnings of others, even forebears, is not nice. > > Caste marks of the upper-middles would include living in a house with more rooms than you need, except perhaps when a lot of “overnight guests” are present to help you imitate upper-class style. . . . This class is also the most “role-reversed” of all: men think nothing of cooking and doing housework, women of working out of the house in journalism, theater, or real estate. (If the wife stays home all the time, the family’s middle-class only.) Upper-middles like to show off their costly educations by naming their cats Spinoza, Clytemnestra, and Candide, which means, as you’ll have inferred already, that it’s in large part the class depicted by Lisa Birnbach and others’ _Official Preppy Handbook,_ that significantly popular artifact of 1980. The three classes described above together make up the overclass. > [@brazil84](#): > > Of course, the OP’s quote doesn’t just talk about an “overclass,” it talks about a “white overclass.” And I suspect that this is the real grievance here. That the people with power and status in America come disproportionately from certain ethnic/cultural groups. That is the truth (see the excerpt in post #34), and Lind does perceive that as a grievance, as he **(and you)** should. But it is not his sole grievance. He is careful everywhere to point out that most middle-class and underclass Americans are also white (a fact that both white racists and black activists tend to obscure). Affirmative action he sees as in part a divide-and-rule strategy\* by the overclass, suppressing demands for broader social equality by subsidizing the creation of token black and Latino overclasses – which lack any independent power bases of their own and are in effect dependent, salaried auxiliaries to the white overclass. What he wants to replace affirmative action with is a set of color-blind “social escalator” programs designed to lift the poor of **all races** into the middle class at least. And what’s wrong with that? 🙂 \*N.B.: “Strategy” != “conspiracy.” Also from Lind’s book: > [@](#): > > In personifying the overclass and describing its strategy, I do not mean to imply the existence of a literal conspiracy. When members of a disproportionately powerful class pursue similar class-based interests, the result will be similar to that of a conscious program even if there has been no concerted action. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/54 "2008-12-29T20:38:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, what you have is an **institutional elite,** which Lind carefully distinguishes from the overclass that provides most (not all) of its members. Re-read the excerpt in the OP. Barack Obama is part of the institutional elite, but not of the overclass; he might conceivably have married into it, but he didn’t. > > There **is** exclusivity to the overclass – it is not absolute, but it is real. Frankly, I find your definition of “overclass” to be rather slippery. A few posts back, you said this: > [@](#): > > No, it’s a matter of power, not exclusivity. Now it seems you are dragging “exclusivity” back into your definition. Not only that, but when I talked about the people with “power,” you dismissed this category by introducing a new term - the “institutional elite.” You yourself insisted that “it’s a matter of power.” Whatever that means. So basically what you are saying doesn’t seemt to be making much sense. I think you need to define your terms clearly. > [@](#): > > Hence the name of the top class, which could just as well be called “the class in hiding.” Their houses are never seen from the street or road. They like to hide away deep in the hills or way off on Greek or Caribbean islands (which they tend to own), safe, for the moment, from envy and its ultimate attendants, confiscatory taxation and finally expropriation. . . . Again, I would call this more of a subculture than a class. Would the kids in _Born Rich_ spurn somebody who was nouveaux riche? Probably not, if the newcomer otherwise fit in. > [@](#): > > We now come to the upper-middle class. It may possess virtually as much as the two classes above it. The difference is that it has earned most of it, in law, medicine, oil, shipping, real estate, or even the more honorific kinds of trade, like buying and selling works of art. Although they may enjoy some inherited money and use inherited “things” (silver, Oriental rugs), the upper-middles suffer from a bourgeois sense of shame, a conviction that to live on the earnings of others, even forebears, is not nice. > > Caste marks of the upper-middles would include living in a house with more rooms than you need, except perhaps when a lot of “overnight guests” are present to help you imitate upper-class style. . . . This class is also the most “role-reversed” of all: men think nothing of cooking and doing housework, women of working out of the house in journalism, theater, or real estate. (If the wife stays home all the time, the family’s middle-class only.) Upper-middles like to show off their costly educations by naming their cats Spinoza, Clytemnestra, and Candide, which means, as you’ll have inferred already, that it’s in large part the class depicted by Lisa Birnbach and others’ Official Preppy Handbook, that significantly popular artifact of 1980. Yet again, this is more than a subculture than a class as I illustrated earlier in the thread. > [@](#): > > He is careful everywhere to point out that most middle-class and underclass Americans are also white (a fact that both white racists and black activists tend to obscure). Affirmative action he sees as in part a divide-and-rule strategy\* by the overclass, suppressing demands for broader social equality by subsidizing the creation of token black and Latino overclasses – which lack any independent power bases of their own and are in effect dependent, salaried auxiliaries to the white overclass. What he wants to replace affirmative action with is a set of color-blind “social escalator” programs designed to lift the poor of **all races** into the middle class at least. And what’s wrong with that? 🙂 It would depend on the specific proposal. The idea of gutting lending standards in order to increase the rates of home ownership didn’t work out very well. The idea of basing college and professional school admissions in large part on multiple choice tests is great for Jewish and Asian people but not so great for Blacks and Hispanics. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/55 "2008-12-29T21:33:14Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Now it seems you are dragging “exclusivity” back into your definition. Not only that, but when I talked about the people with “power,” you dismissed this category by introducing a new term - the “institutional elite.” You yourself insisted that “it’s a matter of power.” Whatever that means. > > So basically what you are saying doesn’t seemt to be making much sense. I think you need to define your terms clearly. It’s simple enough: The overclass has **power** because it (1) furnishes most of the institutional elite and (2) exercises influence over elections and public policymaking far out of proportion to its numbers and (3) collectively controls most of the wealth and the corporations and elite institutions. It is **in part** meritocratic and open to (limited) recruitment, but **in the main** an exclusive social class, composed of families bound by ties of marriage and common life experiences. > [@brazil84](#): > > Again, I would call this more of a subculture than a class. Goths are a subculture. Hippies are a subculture. If most members are born into it and more likely than not to marry within it, and if it is something with a definite socioeconomic status-cache high or low, it’s a class. (Whites and blacks at any given level of American society have a cultural division between them, they are not in the same class – yet.) > [@brazil84](#): > > Would the kids in _Born Rich_ spurn somebody who was nouveaux riche? Probably not, if the newcomer otherwise fit in. That is a process Lind sees clearly in operation, in the formation of the modern overclass from the fusion of the professionals and businesscritters with the old rentier classes. > [@brazil84](#): > > It would depend on the specific proposal. The idea of gutting lending standards in order to increase the rates of home ownership didn’t work out very well. The role of which in the [lending crisis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis) has been greatly exaggerated, but, in any case, Lind is thinking more of things that would allow underclass Americans actually to increase their education, earning capacity, and social stability. That takes a bit more than a house, though a house is important, which perception underlay America’s whites-only home-mortgage-deduction policy after WWII. > [@brazil84](#): > > The idea of basing college and professional school admissions in large part on multiple choice tests is great for Jewish and Asian people but not so great for Blacks and Hispanics. A problem that can easily (but not cheaply) be corrected at the preschool and primary-education stages. Unless you still think (and I think you do) that some races are mentally inferior to others by heredity. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/56 "2008-12-29T23:01:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It’s simple enough: The overclass has **power** because it (1) furnishes most of the institutional elite and (2) exercises influence over elections and public policymaking far out of proportion to its numbers and (3) collectively controls most of the wealth and the corporations and elite institutions. It is **in part** meritocratic and open to (limited) recruitment, but **in the main** an exclusive social class, composed of families bound by ties of marriage and common life experiences. I disagree, and I think my hypothetical from before will illustrate it: Suppose some corn-fed boy from Iowa does well on the SATs and ends up going to an ivy league school; where he becomes a bit of an environmentalist, starts listening to NPR now and then, and seriously thinks about applying to grad school. If he starts dating a coed who is part of the whole SWPL set and things get serious, will her parents have serious objections? If he gets good grades in college and a good LSAT score, will he have any more trouble getting into law school than the Jewish kid across the hall who is from Long Island? These aren’t just rhetorical questions . . . I’d like to hear your response. > [@](#): > > The role of which in the [lending crisis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis) has been greatly exaggerated, I’m not sure what this means, but in any event, I think most people would agree that gutting lending standards wasn’t such a great idea in hindsight. Whether it caused the current economic crisis or not. > [@](#): > > but, in any case, Lind is thinking more of things that would allow underclass Americans actually to increase their education, earning capacity, and social stability. What are your specific proposals? > [@](#): > > A problem that can easily (but not cheaply) be corrected at the preschool and primary-education stages. That’s probably an issue for another thread, but again, what are your specific proposals? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/57 "2008-12-30T00:19:30Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I disagree, and I think my hypothetical from before will illustrate it: > > Suppose some corn-fed boy from Iowa does well on the SATs and ends up going to an ivy league school; where he becomes a bit of an environmentalist, starts listening to NPR now and then, and seriously thinks about applying to grad school. > > If he starts dating a coed who is part of the whole SWPL set and things get serious, will her parents have serious objections? Maybe, probably not. The main problem is not their prejudice but that your corn-fed boy in that situation is, in the current structure of our society, a relatively rare animal. (BTW, could you spell out “SWPL set”?) > [@brazil84](#): > > If he gets good grades in college and a good LSAT score, will he have any more trouble getting into law school than the Jewish kid across the hall who is from Long Island? Probably not. But his getting into an Ivy-League university in the first place would be a challenge, in part because of [legacy preferences,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences) which Lind wants to outlaw. > [@brazil84](#): > > What are your specific proposals? **Lind’s** specific proposals are set forth in Chapter Eight of his book. I am rereading it and will prepare you a summary. (Of course, you could read the book yourself, most public-libary systems will have a copy.) ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/58 "2008-12-30T00:20:23Z")
I’m just not seeing the difference between “overclass” and “wealthy.” Yes, I’ve seen the comments about the nouveau riche not “passing,” but I think that would last one generation, at most. Their children will soon fall into the “overclass.” All those new people you were mentioning who have been coming in from the south and west? Guess what–they’re nouveau riche. Only now they’re being admitted to the overclass. Replace “overclass” with “tax bracket” and I don’t see any difference. Do wealthy people have more power, and the ability to pass that wealth and power on to their descendants? Yes. That’s the nature of wealth. Calling it an “overclass” confuses the point. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/59 "2008-12-30T00:24:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Lind is not calling for a social revolution either. What he wants is to abolish race-based affirmative action and replace it with a far more vigorous (and expensive, and the overclass can damned well pay for it) battery of “social escalator” programs designed to lift the poor into the middle class. The problem I see with this is somewhat akin to the problem of making _all_ children “above average”. 😉 Indeed, though I admit I have not read the man’s work, the exerpts I have seen are more describtive than proscriptive - there is certainly an “upper class” or “overclass” or whatever you want to call it, an upper level of society, and it shares a bunch of characteristics … but can everyone be “upper class”? Not really. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975/60 "2008-12-30T00:27:59Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The problem I see with this is somewhat akin to the problem of making _all_ children “above average”. 😉 > > Indeed, though I admit I have not read the man’s work, the exerpts I have seen are more describtive than proscriptive - there is certainly an “upper class” or “overclass” or whatever you want to call it, an upper level of society, and it shares a bunch of characteristics … but can everyone be “upper class”? Not really. No, but everybody now underclass can be middle-class, even if that renders meaningless the name of the latter – i.e., can enjoy what we now think of as middle-class income, status and opportunities – and free and socially acceptable intermarriage with those families that make up the middle class at present. As for the overclass, Lind doesn’t want to destroy it as a class, only to tax it more, reduce its power and privileges, and make access to it easier. It’s a form of Disraeli’s “one-nation conservatism.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-such-thing-as-a-white-american-overclass/478975.md?page=4)