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| Photo: Dorothea Lange |
Until the 1930s, the prevailing myth was that unlike Europe - from which America descended - this country had no social classes. We were the land of opportunity, of the American Dream, of Horatio Alger, of American exceptionalism.
Then, shortly before World War Two, sociologists such as W. Lloyd Warner “discovered” social class in America. This was a first. Perhaps the sociological study of social class was one manifestation of America’s increased social consciousness resulting from the Great Depression.
For the following half century, common sense prevailed: The scholarly literature, the mainstream media, politicians and public opinion all felt comfortable discussing social class.
The study of social stratification and social inequality became one of Sociology’s core areas.
There was no consensus as to how many social classes there are. There were many different models and approaches. In his pioneering study “Yankee City” Lloyd Warner divided the population into six social classes: Upper, Middle and Lower, and each of these further divided into upper and lower.
A different approach was Marx’s conflict theory, which recognized only two classes. This perspective contributed to the great American sociologist C. Wright Mills’s concept of the Power Elite. Later, Edward Banfield proposed four classes: Upper, Middle, Working and Lower. There was also the work of Michael Harrington (“The Other America: Poverty in the United States,” 1962). More recently, Dennis Gilbert divides the population into “Capitalists,” “Upper Middle Class,” “Middle Class,” “Working Poor” and “Underclass.”
About one thing everyone agreed: Social classes are REAL. Words such as “upper class,” “working class” and “lower class” were in everyday usage among professionals and laymen alike. The most widespread conception was that there were three classes: upper, middle and lower.
Strangely, the meaningful discussion of social class has now unraveled. There has been a concerted effort by the plutocratic brainwashing machine to deny the existence of social class in America and to suffocate its discussion. It is as if we were back to pre-Lloyd Warner days, a century ago.
It is at the level of our VOCABULARY that the right-wing propaganda machine has fought the battle and largely won it:
1. Today, if you raise the issue of inequality, conservative and crypto-conservative people like George Will, David Brooks and Kathleen Parker accuse you of envy and class warfare.
2. Words such as “redistribution” are viewed as evil.
3. So is “Socialism,” which is no longer distinguished from “Communism” and Marxism.
4. Many people are so ignorant that they - absurdly - equate Socialism with Fascism, which is its very opposite.
(See my Jan. 24 '13 post: Are Fascism and Socialism the Same? Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and Other Ignoramuses Believe so)
5. Saddest of all is the fact that even the media and the politicians who claim to be centrist or progressive - the Washington Post, MSNBC, Democrats, syndicated columnist E. J. Dionne, President Obama himself! - have been intimidated. They are simply AFRAID to use words such as “lower class,” “working class” or “social class.”
When was the last time you read or heard these words in public? Did you hear President Obama use them in his State of the Union address? No. It is only permissible to speak of the “Middle Class.” The Right has succeeded in making social class once again a taboo topic.
This is amazing, as it comes at a time of unprecedented and growing inequality, a time when there is less upward mobility here than in Europe - a tragic reversal for the “land of opportunity.”
Not only are social classes, including a working class and a lower class, starker realities in America today than ever, but one could go so far as to posit the existence of CASTES - that is, social classes from which it is impossible to exit, even from one generation to the next; social classes into which you are born and in which you die, social classes in which people are trapped, generation after generation. Ask the people in the South Bronx, in Appalachia and in the San Joaquin Valley!
Why does the President only speak of the Middle Class, when dozens of millions of Americans live from hand to mouth, even though they work full time? That is called, at best, the WORKING class.And what about the millions below those - the people who live on a monthly $900 welfare check for a family of four, the homeless, the migrant workers? This is called the LOWER class.
And then of course there are the other folks, the 1%. They can be called all sorts of things (Veblen called them the Leisure Class), but the correct term is simple: UPPER class - another label rarely used any more.
So let me remind you of what the American class structure looks like:
Social Class: Percentage of all households: Annual family income:
1. Capitalist Upper Class: 1% Over a million
2. Middle class and Upper Middle Class: 40% $50,000 and up
3. Working Class and Working Poor: 44% $13,000 - $50,000
4. Lower class: 15% Under $13,000
(Partially based on Dennis Gilbert’s The American
Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality).
Do you know what your social class is? My guess is that most of you are in groups #2 and #3, and that none of you are in group #1.
© Tom Kando 2013
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7 comments:
What I think is really going on is a new form of feudalism and an new class of serfs. Serfs, in my view, are people who live off the good graces of a patron, and on their terms. They have very little control over their own destiny. In this respect, a Walmart clerk being paid a minimum wage, and a Chinese factory laborer are both industrial serfs. A person on welfare is a government serf.
Typically "Middle Class" refers to a business owner, farmer or skilled worker who has control over their destiny. Many people I have met that claim a Tea Party allegiance are on the verge of moving from middle class to serf and they are reacting to this loss of control over their fate. They split the Republican Party against the industrial and financial interests they used to be allied with.
Democrats, on the other hand, continue to seek to create government serfs who will reward them with votes in exchange for provision of minimal care. Neither party wants a genuine midddle class because it is against the interests of their elite when they are unable to control people. And, they react when citizens try to influence them.
The problem with the idea of class is that people on the left seem to think that class is like a building with levels where people are permanently assigned. In reality, unlike much of Europe, class in the US has traditionally been like an elevator - with the ability of people to move up and down with relative ease.
In the last couple of years there has been a lot of yammering from the left about how classes in the US have stratified. The data does not support the notion. American society has been through a series of very dynamic changes - including a huge influx of immigrants for a couple of decades that in some places like California is a larger proportion of immigrants than in the last period of major immigration which ended in the Palmer period in the 1920s.
A second problem with the theory of class is to assume that classes within themselves are static. That is nonsense. The situation of the lowest quintile in terms of amenities like air conditioning, TV, cars, house size - is considerably better than for many in the highest quintile two decades ago.
At the same time we have experienced almost exponential changes in technology. One data point - the Cray computer of 20 years ago had fewer teraflops than the first generation of iPads. When a society experiences significant technological disruptions for a short while the initial winners are the people who master the technology.
Finally as to the idea of serfs. The difference between a government serf and a Walmart clerk is that the clerk has the opportunity with effort to get out of the situation; the government serf - which as Gordon points out the dems want to create - has a much harder time to get off.
Hello Tom,
Just a quick msg. You and Madeleine are getting better each time. Today, I agreed word for word with your class analysis.
'My guess is that most of you are in groups #2 and #3, and that none of you are in group #1'. You might have added "or group #4".
All the best,
Gordon makes several interesting points.
His choice of words may not be coincidental. They echo Friedrich Hayek’s famous book, “The Road to Serfdom.” Let’s hope that Hayek was not pre-scient.
Jonathan remains optimistic about American upward mobility. I hope that he is right, but I am by nature a pessimist. Nor am I entirely ignorant about the “data,” which do not clearly support his optimistic view.
I am especially thankful for Abram’s overseas voice.
If you look at the problem of serfdom, Jonathan is right that people economic serfs are not as locked in as government serfs. Yet upward mobility is becoming more difficult for them as well. In the Middle Ages you had to "marry the handsome prince" or "rescue the damsel in distress" to move upward in that system.
Actually, those who saw upward mobility were those who left that system and joined a new economy. In those days the new economy was independent towns where people were walled off from feudal lords and could set up a shop or business. Today we wonder whether a new electronic economy can serve that purpose.
Tom,
This is an interesting short essay. I have read all of these books and knew Warner, though I never had a class with him - actually I never did a graduate course in sociology but political science students read some of this. I remember receiving the C. Wright Mills book The Power Elite for Christmas in the mail when I was in the Philippines in the mid 50s.
Don,
thanks for sharing this information. I gather that it was at the University of Chicago (where you got your Doctorate), that you crossed paths with Lloyd Warner?
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