My point is that I think the hereditary poor are far more hereditary than the upper class, and that I think Lind’s ideas about geography and religion are seeing boundaries that aren’t actually there. The big factor for joining the upper class, other than some degree of ability, is money. The children of those with money, whether self-made or inherited, must work pretty hard to not succeed.
But not on that alone. There are many other factors in play. From Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, by Paul Fussell:
In the last chapter, Fussell identifies a tenth class, a “Class X” of declassed intellectuals and bohemians. (I’m sure Fussell would agree, if asked, with Lind’s conclusion that the top three classes now are bound together by cultural, social and marital ties.)
Even this fine-grained analysis might be too simplistic. For one thing, it ignores divisions between ethnic groups. A working-class black and a working-class white might work in similar occupations for similar incomes; but they grow up in different social environments, speak different dialects, attend different churches, listen to different music, socialize with circles of friends almost entirely of their own color, and almost certainly will marry (or, at any rate, reproduce) within their own race. The divisions are much less sharp than they were 20 years ago. (I know white kids who listen to rap and hip-hop, and who call each other “nigger” and “dog” as terms of affection, and whose closest friends and romantic interests are as likely to be black as white.) But they’re still there. Are the white prole and the black prole in the same “class”? In 10 or 20 years, maybe; today, no, IMO. They both occupy the same horizontal layer of the social pyramid but there is a vertical line of separation between them.
Perhaps a better question to ask is whether Fussell’s analysis is dated. In noting the death of the American lower middle class due to economic forces in the 1960s and '70s, Fussell acknowledged a society’s class structure can change significantly in a short period of time. And his book dates from 1983. How well does it describe the America of 2008?
Yes. When the best and brightest stop having a way to the upper echelons of power, or stop having the outlet to impact society meaningfully, the society crumbles due to ineptitude. I do believe our rulers at Rand are quite intelligent and capable people. I do believe Barack Obama and Rahm Emmanueal are intelligent and capable people. As is Dick Cheney, Hillary and Bill Clinton etc…
Yes, I know that and if they won, they would be the ruling class and not the peons that they organized. Just like Lenin and Stalin became the aristocracy in the Soviet Union.
They were not overthrowing. They succeeded in changing America. That is a victory. If you define it as conquering the world there have been no winners yet.
If you believe Bush was our best and brightest, I fear for you.
I do not think the right wing think tanks are populated by idiots. I do believe they are wrong though. The Ivy League provides the ruling class with a lot of similar thinking people. They ,like you, actually believe they are the ones who should run the world. If the MBAs who brought the world economy to its knees with unfettered greed didn’t teach you something about them, what will?
All those other factors, almost completely lifestyle-based, are secondary and have both source and level of income at their roots. The Rockefeller, Vanderbilts, Fords, etc. wouldn’t be “top out-of-sight” class and living as they do if they didn’t have the money that they inherited from earlier generations of the family, who originally got it as profit from the labor of others.
I noted with interest, especially, that the less one’s income depends on one’s own labor power, the lower the level of psychic or actual insecurity. That, to me, signals an important, if not fundamental, division in society more important that divisions by race or gender.
The point that’s being made, though, is that that system was NOT overthrown. As a matter of fact, it still exists today, essentially unchanged from the way it worked in 1776.
America chose to secede from that system, and in so doing created their own (which resembles the British system a little more than people seem to want to admit, but never mind that.) The British constitutional monarchy was not overthrown by American independence - it was broken away from.
That is, I think, a rather critical distinction. America was already its own society by the time rebellion was in the air - as a matter of fact, that’s one of the reasons rebellion was in the air in the first place. The replacement of the monarch by a republic was part of the legalities but the monarch remained in power and his descendant remains in pwoer today - the USA just opted out.
So how would you distinguish that from the French revolution? Was bourgeois society already not in place by 1789? It seems to me that your argument could be used to claim that the French didn’t have a revolution either.
Revolutionary fervor usually starts in the middle classes. I could envision a rift - a culture war, if you like - between the conservative religious middle class, led by pissed-off middle managers and military/law enforcement officers, and the more liberal secular middle class, composed of academics and knowledge workers. The small-minded versus the fuzzy-headed. And the small-minded have guns and a knowledge of demagoguery, and are willing to use both to get the working class on their side.
Can I.Q. be measured in minus figures?
Which is why the working class needs to learn to act as a class by itself and for itself.
Which of the classes named in Fussell’s analysis would you include in the “working class”?
The French apparatus of state was utterly overthrown and destroyed and replaced by a new one. The British government was not. It seems a pretty clear difference.
Ah, but the British apparatus of state was overthrown and replaced by a new one in the American colonies, was it not? Why should the existence of an intervening ocean define what is a revolution and what is not?
BG - Upper-middle class on down.
Well, from a Marxist perspective it only counts as a “bourgeois revolution,” not the real thing at all, if it only changes the form of government without changing the socioeconomic order. How did the American Revolution change the social order in America? Did Irving Kristol actually spot something real there that most historians have missed?
Because the upper-middle are not independently wealthy and have to work for a living? That’s where economic function runs up against cultural outlook. You probably could sell the high proles on the idea that they have class interests in common with all those below, rather than above, them. If you tried really, really hard for a long time, you might could sell the middle class on the same idea. The upper-middle? NFW. They are in many cases married to those above them, and if they’re not they can reasonably expect some of their children will be. They’re all members of the same overclass with the same manners and culture and outlook, and, in their own mind, the same interests – and they, including the upper-middle, are what George Carlin was referring to when he said, “It’s a big club – and you ain’t in it.”
But it’s worth mentioning a footnote from the same 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.” Any Marxist would agree, I’m sure.
Lind’s book, I mean, not Fussell’s.
Your understanding of the Marxist perspective is wrong. The phrase “bourgeois revolution” contains no moral or ethical judgement on the nature of the revolution; the American, French, and English revolutions were the “real thing” in that they provided the political stamp for what was already socioeconomic reality: the bourgeoisie was the ascendant and more powerful class and their turn had come to rule society. Prior to the ascendancy of the bourgeoisie and these revolutions, the royalty enjoyed absolute power and had a direct hand in the economic life of the country. Bourgeois encroachments on that power were met, of course, with resistance, which generated the political friction and resentment that found its inevitable outlet in these revolutions. (As noted previously, the only thing inevitable about these revolutions was that the would occur, not when or where or how, or even their outcomes.)
The removal of direct monarchical involvement in the business life of the country, for one thing - elimination of taxes that directly supported the monarch’s lifestyle with no reinvestment in the colonies, for example. The separation of Church and State, so that organized religion was now on its own to support itself instead of drawing off State revenue (another tax that precluded reinvestment). The removal of suppression of political freedoms implemented by the monarchy to protect itself. Overall - the unfettered rule of the bourgeoisie replacing the unfettered rule of a monarch; the removal of the last trappings of feudalism to make room for the development and growth of capitalism.
I never said the upper-middle class was my target audience. I simply said that, based on the criteria of whether one had to work for a living or not, regardless of the level of income, I consider the upper-middle class to be working class. Furthermore, the bottom two income quintiles are numerically greater than the top three income quintiles combined (if I remember my research for another long-ago thread correctly), and their interests truly lie in the direction of a new social revolution.
Additionally, I meant to note a striking similarity between a quote from your excerpt of Fussell:
and a quote from Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto (emphasis mine):
Whether or not Fussell considered himself a Marxist, it’s rather interesting to see him confirm what Marx saw happening 130 years earlier at the dawn of the capitalist age!
True enough, but I hope you don’t mean to argue that there has never been any concerted action on the part of the ruling class in their own interests. Nor do I mean to argue that the existence of concerted effort is proof positive of a conspiracy.
Given your current batting average of .500, I think it might be safer to ask whether I agree instead of assuming I do.
Burton: any replies to our input?
Did I miss something in this thread? Just went over the whole thing again; didn’t see you anywhere in it.
I have a few problems with Fussell’s analysis (at least what you posted, I haven’t read his book). On the surface, it seems like a relatively accurate assessment of the class structure of the US, based on socioeconomic status, attitudes and mannarisms. Reading this, I recognize many of the traits and attitudes he describes in people I encounter that I associate with a particular class. Kind of like how I recongnize certain “truths” in a fortune cookie.
I believe his analysis presumes these strata to be fixed and unchangeable, probably from birth. It does not seem to address mobility between classes or the path one has taken to get to their particular class. It also doesn’t seem to talk about how one’s class can change significantly as one progresses in their career. For example, at my last company, you have a 45 year old partner who is a multimillionare living in a Westchester, NY mansion, a director making $250k a year living in Morristown, NJ and a first year analyst making $45,000 a year living in a walkup appartment with two roomates in the Upper East Side. They all have the exact same education. What class are they? Does the fact that they may have been born poor or went to college on scholarship factor in?
I have similar problem with the whole concept of “white overclass”. “Single, culturally homogeneous white”? He basically describes pretty much anyone who is white, went to a halfway decent college and has a job in a big company in the city. Hardly a homogeneous group IMHO. And he convenient ignores exceptions to the rule. What percent of senior executives and top business people graduated from 2nd or 3rd tier schools or came from working class or poor families? I would submit that your “white overclass” does not exist, is a convenient stereotype or that there are so many exceptions to the rule that they are irrelevant.