Social Class

[Túrin Turambar]

It was rare, and not as common as it is today, but it wasn’t unknown.

Why was it rare? Were there social systems in place that blocked such social mobility?

Not formally, but a poor person would be unlikely to have the education or connections to get a higher-paying job, and only those who had enough property to live on without working would be accepted into the social circle of the gentry. But there were no formal barriers. By and large, what has changed has been income and inheritance tax and labour laws on one hand, that makes accumulating and running vast estates these days very difficult, and more importantly, public education.

[Frelga]

In the States, I think, class is primarily defined by wealth. Hence the emphasis on conspicuous consumption as an outward indicator of success, and a relatively low importance placed on education, erudition and manners.

There is also a confusion, IMO, between wealth and income. A person's income is to a large degree dependent on their own luck and efforts. Clearly a child of rich parents is way ahead from the start in terms of access to education and connections - does anyone think George W. would have been elected president without his father's connections? Still, it is possible for a talented and energetic individual to achieve quite a high income.

Wealth, however, is a mater of assets, not income. For an instance, as a first-generation immigrants, we started with zero assets. We did have a good education, which allowed us to achieve a reasonably comfortable income. By comparison, a couple on a single, lower salary will always be ahead of us in terms of wealth thanks to the real estate they inherited and trust funds set up for their children by their relatives. Multiplying by zero gives zero, which makes it very hard to build wealth from the ground up.

[axordil]

Hence the emphasis on conspicuous consumption as an outward indicator of success, and a relatively low importance placed on education, erudition and manners.

Yes and no. Money gets you an in, to a point. Beyond that it's networking, what school you went to (that means private prep school, not university) and other Old Money issues. You can drive a $250K car right up to the gates of the club that won't let you in.

Really stupfid, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet sums of money operate by their own rules, of course. At a certain point money becomes like mass--it deforms reality around it.

[vison]

Hence the emphasis on conspicuous consumption as an outward indicator of success, and a relatively low importance placed on education, erudition and manners.

Yes and no. Money gets you an in, to a point. Beyond that it's networking, what school you went to (that means private prep school, not university) and other Old Money issues. You can drive a $250K car right up to the gates of the club that won't let you in.

Really stupfid, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet sums of money operate by their own rules, of course. At a certain point money becomes like mass--it deforms reality around it.

That's a good comparison!

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are more or less outside the rules, but the other thing is, that the "real upper class" would regard them as the rest of us do: as being freaks of nature.

I don't know if any of you have ever read "The Way We Live Now" by Trollope, but pretty much everything you could say about class, wealth, and social mobility is right there in black and white.

[Maria]

I found myself watching a little old blue haired lady getting out of a shiny antique Rolls Royce today and wondering if she thought she was part of a higher class of people.

Then I kind of shrugged and walked on and thought that if she does, she's wrong.

That is the extent of my class consciousness.

[Padme]

I'll give this class thing a shot.

My family, both mother and fathers side, came from upper class Westerners. Both families helped settle the west in big ways. We have land in many places (mostly Texas - dad's side and Utah - mom's side) and have more than one multi-millionaire in our families. However we also have poor people in the family. I fall in the middle. But our family names are big and thus afford us some class in the west. I doubt that would be recogonized in the east (NY, Boston, ect.) But if I mention to anyone where I live that I am a Huntsman...well that gets me a whole different treatment than using my married name. Same with Texas, we mention my grandmothers madian name and it's oh...your that family, and it's yes we are of that Tenn Volunteers family that saved you from Mexico. So it's not so much money as it is family ties still here.


But one can buy one's way into the class here in the west. New Rich is all we got.

And in the oil field an uneducated 8th grade drop out can easily work their way up to a 100k job a year.

[Túrin Turambar]

And in the oil field an uneducated 8th grade drop out can easily work their way up to a 100k job a year.

We've seen the same phenomenon in a big way in Australia with the mining boom. Factory workers and labourers on 30k a year have moved to the mining towns, gotten qualified to work as truck drivers and the like and jump to 80k or more. By all accounts they seem to go a bit crazy.

[Maria]

There've been studies done that show that most people who win lotteries become quite unhappy and depressed afterwards. Many people can't stand a huge disruption to their social network like that.

[nerdanel]

There've been studies done that show that most people who win lotteries become quite unhappy and depressed afterwards. Many people can't stand a huge disruption to their social network like that.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that there are other factors in play than (or in addition to) disruption to social network. My experiences with money (lower-middle-class childhood, upper-middle-class post-law-school existence, current middle-middle-class employment) have taught me that one's salary (or access to money) makes almost no difference to happiness. I think there's probably a poverty level below which happiness would be difficult (e.g., if you could not afford to eat). There's no doubt that additional money enables one to have cool experiences and access to opportunities, and for those with kids, to provide kids with a great range of possibilities. But simply being able to afford more things doesn't seem to make most people much happier.

Some of the lottery winners I have met have given up their previous routine, including jobs and other duties that gave their lives much meaning. They reasoned that they did not need to do those things anymore. However, the money that allowed them unstructured leisure time and purchasing power didn't really bring any additional meaning to their lives. I suspect that this drives the unhappiness and depression that you mention, more than any disruption to their social network.

To be sure, lottery winners do encounter social challenges. I understand it's fairly common for any number of "friends" and "long-lost" family members to materialize in the months after one has purchased a winning lottery ticket. But I suspect that those who are grounded and self-aware enough to continue living a lifestyle that is meaningful to them will find the social challenges possible to navigate.

*****

As for class, what I love about America is that we do not have (and most of us do not care about) hard-and-fast class divisions. Yes, our society self-segregates, as I suspect most do -- but according to various criteria that are meaningful to us. Some of those criteria correlate to income, education-level, geography, or race/ethnicity/family background/religion. But they do so in ever-changing, intersecting ways. The "old guard" or "old money" folks (or whatever they call themselves) are free to have their exclusive events, and the rest of us are free to ignore them and go about our lives associating with people whom we consider desirable, however defined. There's no one "in" circle, from which everyone else is excluded, but to which everyone else wishes to belong. I suspect this is increasingly true elsewhere in the world as well, but can't personally speak to it.

[vison]

People are always free to ignore the remote Old Guard. Always have been. It only matters if they want to get in there.

The late Dominic Dunne wrote scorchingly funny and somehow sad stories about that sort of thing.

Workers who go to the Tar Sands in Alberta make vast sums of money. But a basement apartment, a real dump, costs $5,000 a month to rent, so the big wages vanish pretty fast.

[Túrin Turambar]

As for class, what I love about America is that we do not have (and most of us do not care about) hard-and-fast class divisions.

Few societies do. Yet I suspect that, if every American on this board thought about their immediate social circle, it would consist mostly of people similar to them in background, education level and income. Not identical, but I doubt that many people here spend a lot of time working or socialising with labourers, bricklayers, dock and railway workers or factory workers. Similarly, I doubt many people here spend time in city and country clubs in New York and Massachusetts and socialise with the landed gentry.

I also suspect that many people who think of themselves as ‘lower middle class’ or ‘middle class’ just don’t realise how many people are living on a lot less than they are. According to this graph on wiki via the U.S. census bureau, more than a quarter of America’s households and more than a third of individuals get by 25k/year or less. 70% of individuals and half of households do so on 50k or less. But if you don’t mix with them, then it’s easy to forget how many of them there are. And by and large I’ve come to believe that the middle classes simply don’t mix with them that much, which sort of proves my point. It explains why so much of their political identity and behaviour is alien to them.

ETA: This is something that my experience in retail bought home to me. I would never have thought of myself as wealthy making 40k a year – certainly that would be considered a low starting wage for a law graduate in Queensland. But dealing with the public in a shop in the working-class high-immigrant outer suburbs I was among a virtual elite. We could afford to buy houses and travel, admittedly only small houses and occasional holidays, but it was still more than what most of our customers could dream of. Even with high school diplomas many of us were obviously better educated than them, and we were frequently visibly healthier than they were. Some of my co-workers would talk about how lucky we were to ‘have a job that pays great’. To most of the people I graduated from law school with, though, my retail job put me at the bottom of the heap.

[nerdanel]

Absolutely. I definitely prefer to socialize with people who share my education level and interests, at least. I prefer to live in urban, coastal environments, so invariably I will mix with people who also choose those environments. I don't care about income, and "background" is amorphous. (Though I say I don't care about income, it is easier to hang out with people who are making close to the same amount as you. When I was in the corporate world, I wanted to go to expensive restaurants and drink fine wines, and it was easier to hang out with people making the same amount of money. I had no problem with offering to pay for my friends who were students or on tighter budgets, but they understandably felt a bit conscious about it. Similarly, now that I've unashamedly taken a substantial salary pay cut, I find it more difficult to hang out with my friends in the corporate world. I don't want them to have to pay my way, and I'm very comfortable with the idea that I can't afford to do everything I used to do. But it causes them some frustration when I want to go to cheaper restaurants or shop less frequently (or not at all), or whatever.)

Essentially, I want to hang out with people who enjoy going to scholarly talks at local universities, enjoy wine and tea tasting, appreciate good food and fine coffee, enjoy competitive swimming, love talking about the law and politics and government, are interested in international travel and/or living abroad, and appreciate classical music. People who share many of these things in common with me are usually at my educational level and of similar means. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with anyone who lives differently in any way, but they're going to have a different social circle.

I agree with your observation that the political identity and behavior of differently situated people can feel alien due to social segregation.

[Nenochtoo]

Do tell more about the American gentry.

My mostly suppressed savage side would probaly say - 'If it got down to the nit and grit
they'd do good over the fire
on a spit.

However rich food gives me gas.

[Túrin Turambar]

I don't care about income, and "background" is amorphous. (Though I say I don't care about income, it is easier to hang out with people who are making close to the same amount as you. When I was in the corporate world, I wanted to go to expensive restaurants and drink fine wines, and it was easier to hang out with people making the same amount of money. I had no problem with offering to pay for my friends who were students or on tighter budgets, but they understandably felt a bit conscious about it. Similarly, now that I've unashamedly taken a substantial salary pay cut, I find it more difficult to hang out with my friends in the corporate world. I don't want them to have to pay my way, and I'm very comfortable with the idea that I can't afford to do everything I used to do. But it causes them some frustration when I want to go to cheaper restaurants or shop less frequently (or not at all), or whatever).

Except for the particularly snobbish (or the reverse-snobbish if you can call them that) I’d say that very few people are directly concerned with income. People generally don’t not want to hang out with people just because they’re too poor or too rich. But income is closely tied with the other qualities that you list. But if your social circle is dominated by “people who enjoy going to scholarly talks at local universities, enjoy wine and tea tasting, appreciate good food and fine coffee, enjoy competitive swimming, love talking about the law and politics and government, are interested in international travel and/or living abroad, and appreciate classical music” then it is probably indirectly filtered by income and education, and thus by social class. You list the activities and interests of the professional upper-middle classes. The son of a welder or the daughter of a storeman and packer is far, far less likely to have those interests than the son of a barrister or the daughter of a doctor. And on the flipside, the people who have those interests, regardless of their background, are more likely to seek higher education and get professional, inner-city jobs than they are to satisfy themselves with unskilled waged work in the shops and warehouses of the outer suburbs.

People seem comfortable with acknowledging that others are too wealthy, upper-class or ‘posh’ for them to want to socialise with. I’ve seen such comments in this thread. But they often seem uncomfortable these days with going the other way. They don’t want to look shallow or judgmental, probably. And we like to believe we live in a society where the poor kid is just as likely to grow up to be rich as the rich kid, and the kid from the estates is just as likely to read Shakespeare as the middle-class kid. But we don’t. And I’m certainly not afraid to admit that, while I like the people that I work with, they probably won’t be my lifelong friends. It isn’t an acnowledgement that I’m ‘better’ than them, just that my education and interests will (I hope!) lead me to a different income, different activities and a different social circle.

That said, I no longer have qualms about admitting that some of the poor and uneducated people I’ve met were simply lower-class. They had no interest in and open contempt for education or any sort of self-improvement; were lazy, rude, ignorant and bigoted; had little self-discipline or self-respect; and as a result were poor, uneducated and unhealthy. Were they so because of their own choices or their background? I don’t know. I’ve also met people who were poor and uneducated that I’ve had a lot of respect for, and some wealthier people who showed the lower-class qualities I listed above. But in the end the people that are intelligent, hard-working, disciplined and foresighted normally do better, and I can’t deny that there’s a connection between income and these qualities, even if there are many exceptions.

[yovargas]

Most everyone likes to hang out with like-minded people. The idea that this would somehow constitutes a "social class" is odd to me......

[Túrin Turambar]

Most everyone likes to hang out with like-minded people. The idea that this would somehow constitutes a "social class" is odd to me......

Not to me.

[yovargas]

Oh. So.....what are we talking about?

[Túrin Turambar]

I don't know if any of you have ever read "The Way We Live Now" by Trollope, but pretty much everything you could say about class, wealth, and social mobility is right there in black and white.

I love TWWLN, and the excellent TV miniseries starring David Suchet. Still, I think the best commentary on social class is Dickens' Great Expectations. I'm watching the 1999 version on Youtube now.

[Hachimitsu]

OK I just read some of this and I basically spent a whole year on the cultural construction of class. I just did an exam on it (for 6 hours!!). So I don't feel like going in depth on it. I have not read this whole thing (trying to relax). But I think I agree with Yovargas to a degree.

I could get into a lot of existensial stuff but I don't feel like it.
But using stuff to signify "class" now just all seems really weak to me. It was weak to me before, but now it's really weak. Opera especially, as that was something that was for everyone, until a whole book's worth of stuff happened.

Also I was never into all this class stuff to begin with (using commodities to reify your place in a hierarchy), but also at the same time, I feel to a degree that social mobility is sort of an illusion tat some people cling to to deeply (I am sure I do)

Knowing what a people know about me what "class" would people think I am in? I don't think it's easy to judge anymore and like I said in some places I don't think it really matters. In many places still sadly it is the only thing that matters. I think if people learned about it more I would hope it wouldn't really matter soooo much. (Also it would take some commoditites down a notch So I think it is good to discuss it.

Hopefully I will read this whole thread later (after I finish a still outstanding essay)

Also I would highly recomend everyone take a second year sociocultural anthropology class. I think it would change a persons outlook on the world.

*Wishes Estel could comment here since she is highly experienced in anthropology*

[Túrin Turambar]

Oh. So.....what are we talking about?

That there is a connection between education, income, occupation, parents’ education, parents’ income, parents’ occupation, interests, attitude and social circle, and that these connections result in social classes.

Also I was never into all this class stuff to begin with (using commodities to reify your place in a hierarchy), but also at the same time, I feel to a degree that social mobility is sort of an illusion tat some people cling to to deeply (I am sure I do)

But if social mobility is an illusion, are there not then significant social classes?

I wouldn’t say it’s an illusion – it does happen, and quite commonly. But the majority of people do seem to live lifestyles fairly similar to those of their parents.