> In the UK, class consciousness is woven into the national identity. In America, however, people often like to pretend that a class system doesn’t really exist. But, of course, it does.
This is the most insidious part.
The media in the US has historically been 100% controlled by rich people, and all major media still is.
The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can distract them from the fact that they're all being economically exploited and subjected to wage slavery.
The US has gotten richer and richer, if it functioned properly everyone could have enough without resorting to any radical policies. But as long as 70%+ of Americans are wallowing in economic depression there will be no lasting social progress. Just the way most rich people hope it stays.
The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US. People are just waking up to how bad it is. The #MeToo movement only happened because rich people are losing media control, and it's just one of many to come.
> The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US.
I'm unconvinced. The class system is, at its core, money. And short of eBay allowing people to sell second hand items peer to peer, I really don't think the internet has enabled economic mobility all that much. A select few in Silicon Valley have gotten very rich, certainly, but an effect on the population at large? Maybe it'll happen one day, but even stuff like Bitcoin has somehow transformed from "the new cash" to "the new speculative investment that promises to make people with disposable income even richer".
> The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US.
Right. I'm sure that the fact that the leading internet companies are run by Harvard (FB) and Stanford (Google) grads will not interfere with the Revolution in any way.
>The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US.
If the last two years have shown anything, it's that the "common man" in America is extremely susceptible to cheap propaganda and misinformation.
Half the country would happily watch the entire thing burn down as long as "their team" is doing the burning.
The "plebs", so to speak, have never been more controlled than they are today. If anything, I'm more pessimistic than ever.
Powerful interests will be able to harness the massive amounts of data collected by social media to carefully formulate and craft the exact message they want to control who they want and people who I thought would easily see through that are now completely brainwashed into believing things that they would have laughed at 20 years ago.
The rich will be fine, and the poor will eat each other alive, just as they're told to by the other rich men on the TV.
The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US. People are just waking up to how bad it is. The #MeToo movement only happened because rich people are losing media control, and it's just one of many to come.
I don't buy it. First of all, the class system is about material interests - real physical tangible interests - and not about feelings. Even if 99% of the people live in a world of ideas, the ruling class, by virtue of the fact that they have to bargain over laws (multi hundred page documents that decide taxation and allocation as well as employee and business rights), live in the world of the material.
The American populace lives, and probably since at least the mid 20th century has lived, in a world of ideas. By this I mean, the country is torn asunder by feelings about abortion, race, gender and so forth, immigration [edit: and also celebrity-lead culture] -- all issues that, guess what, don't even touch the interests of the .01%.
#MeToo poses no threat whatsoever to any class system.
> The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can distract them from the fact that they're all being economically exploited and subjected to wage slavery.
Yeah, this is something I've been thinking about for a while too. It's very convenient that the whole 'Occupy' thing got followed up by a huge push for social justice beliefs and comments about deplorables. Like someone didn't want the attention to be focused on the rich, and thought a bit of interclass warfare would be a nice distraction about now.
You can see a huge media political shift about this time too.
But hey, maybe I'm coming across as paranoid here.
The Internet is, increasingly, controlled by a handful of companies, and in the event of serious unrest threatening the social order I don't find it hard to believe that the free exchange of information online would be curtailed.
> ...
> The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can distract them from the fact that they're all being economically exploited and subjected to wage slavery.
> ...
Stated this way, this appears to handwave real problems away. Yes, racial and gender issues are often exploited for political gain; but these issues usually have a basis in real problems.
The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US.
Uh, have you been paying attention to campus protesters?
The US has gotten richer and richer, if it functioned properly everyone could have enough without resorting to any radical policies.
It's not quite that simple, due to human psychology. Even if people are wealthy on a global and historical scale, relative poverty will still cause problems.
>But as long as 70%+ of Americans are wallowing in economic depression there will be no lasting social progress. Just the way most rich people hope it stays.
What definition are you using for economic depression?
> The media in the US has historically been 100% controlled by rich people, and all major media still is.
Things have gotten worse as capital consolidated all the industries. Now we have an illusion of choice. When you go to the supermarket, there seems to be tons of variety of products by many companies. After all, there are so many brands. But all these brands are owned by a handful of companies. The same thing with banking. The last financial crisis was used by the FED ( a banking cartel ) to get large multinational banks to buy up smaller regional banks. Regional newspapers are being bought up by major media companies like news corp.
> The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can distract them from the fact that they're all being economically exploited and subjected to wage slavery.
It's not just identity politics. It's also the bread and circuses. Nothing more poignant than the upcoming superbowl where the mindless stuff their faces while watching advertisements for 4 hours.
> The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US.
That's naive. The internet will almost certainly be used to reinforce it. More distractions, more propaganda and more divisions. Look how quickly the wealthy has come down on the internet and social media already. Look at the amount of censorship. Look what happened to youtube trending page and google news. Youtube trending is now all SNL, major news channels and late night shows. Google news is now all washingtonpost, nytimes, etc.
I hope you are right, but experience tells me money wins and the masses are not intelligent enough or united enough to challenge the wealthy. Our political system doesn't allow for it, nor does our education system or the media or anything else.
I spent a summer in NYC a few years ago. While living in NYC I did get a flavor of higher class living with some roommates of mine. It really is true that there are unspoken codes and mores to follow, and it was uncomfortable when I didn't.
However, this is one issue that's hard to put solely on the foot of the rich or a broader system. Passing in many avenues, not just by class, is really deciding you want to be there and what the terms of your presence will be. It felt at times like trying to get into a club, if you look like you want in, you don't get in. If you don't want in, they let you in. You have to learn to look like you don't want it.
I think rather than teach young children how to hold spoons, or castigate the rich for yet another divide they were born into, probably we should just teach improv skills, confidence skills and encourage people to engage in open dialogue with others. Some solutions don't require us dismantling a system.
If the next time a rich person gives you an askance look and you immediately ask them to explain themselves, guess what, you just equalized yourself with them socially without having to learn which fork to use first.
We love to talk about how being born a certain gender or a certain race shouldn't hold you back from achieving anything you want in America. But what if you are unlucky enough to be born into a poor family, or in a backwoods, downtrodden region of the country?
My experience aligns with the author's. In movies and feel-good stories shared on social media, we romantically idolize the humble rich person, who came from nothing yet somehow stays "true to their roots". And that is a lovely, inspiring mindset necessary to keep people motivated...in theory.
In practice, in order to get ahead in life and to cross class boundaries, you will have to acknowledge that aspects of your upbringing and former way of life are "backwards". You'll have to reconcile that the rich will scorn you and think of your home as a "shithole", and that you "weren't supposed to" make it to the top. You'll have to see things in a new light, and as the author notes, your social life and identity will take a hit (e.g. old friends who won't come to your wedding, or dating prospects who are afraid of being associated with lower classes).
There is a moral failing in our country where the pursuit of money is seen as the objective optimal thing to do. But it's very reasonable to look at how money changes people, and to turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust.
> There is a moral failing in our country where the pursuit of money is seen as the objective optimal thing to do. But it's very reasonable to look at how money changes people, and to turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust.
It's also very easy and PC to venerate the poor out of some misguided sense of pity or moral absolutism.
One could look at poor communities, and, as you said "turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust" and choose enrich themselves.
I'm also not entirely, or even in the least bit, convinced that our society, institutions, social structures, and general well-being would be better off WITHOUT class distinctions. Going deeper, they seem to me to be an essential component of civilization, one of the many necessary "glues" of social order.
edit: This site is slowly turning into Reddit - contrarian opinions need not apply. Instead of down-votes, why not rebut what I said? It's not like the matter is settled, and the last couple times the populous tried to "abolish" social classes, mass terror followed.
This article resonates with me on many levels. I went from below $10/hr to 5x that and never experienced anything in between. The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out what "my people" is supposed to mean.
A huge different that's obvious to me is the language we use. I often wonder why no one's mother didn't fill the these people's mouth with dawn liquid soap and slap the child silly, but then I realize that honesty wasn't a life or death situation for them. I'm often called brutally blunt, but really, I'm very tame compared to most people I grew up around.
As a real example, we often get articles on Hacker News that discusses the best way to hire, best way to land a job, best way to self-learn, and so on. It took me years to realize that these articles were all shaded in a heavy fog of bullshit, and it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog. If I was able to go back in time and tell my autodidact self on thing, it was to learn about bullshit, and it's something I always advise those who trying to self learn.
> it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog
Follow the money.
I'm always asking myself "what does this author have to gain from writing this, or holding that position?" It can happen that there is absolutely no financial motive, many times it's pure greed but often it's on a continuum that's a mix of both profit and helping people out.
As an example it's common to find articles about technical problem and how {{top-organization}} solved it with {{state-of-the-art}} solution. The last paragraph is "oh by the way, we're hiring". While there's a profit motive in this form of content marketing, there's also genuine help being passed along.
Business recommendations tend to be a bit more skewed towards the profit side, and financial recommendations… well those are a class of their own.
A health dose of suspicion goes a long way to sort out the BS.
> "The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out what "my people" is supposed to mean."
For me, the weirdest part is the way in which the upper-middle class people I now associate and work with talk about "my people" (i.e. the working-class folks I grew up with). They mythologize them as the noble, hard-working, salt of the earth, when in reality, they clearly don't like most of their habits, their religion, their tastes, their opinions, their language, or much else about them. Poor and working-class people are described in archetypes, stereotypes, and as abstract ideas. But very little said matches what I know about actual poor people. They are always -- always -- praised when spoken of in the abstract. But when the conversation drifts toward the specific, it's pretty clear that they're not really big fans.
I find myself simultaneously defending the behaviors of the working class while also walking upper-class liberals back a few steps on just how noble and hard-working -- they're always described as hard-working -- most actual poor people really are. They're just people.
> As a real example, we often get articles on Hacker News that discusses the best way to hire, best way to land a job, best way to self-learn, and so on. It took me years to realize that these articles were all shaded in a heavy fog of bullshit, and it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog. If I was able to go back in time and tell my autodidact self on thing, it was to learn about bullshit, and it's something I always advise those who trying to self learn.
If people call you brutally blunt, you might be able to improve your career and relationships with some simple changes to the way you say things. Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg is a great place to start. It's full of examples of people saying something that made other people angry and upset, then showing how they could say the same thing in a different way so that people listened and understood and often gave the person what they needed. Not by wrapping it in bullshit, but by connecting the request to relatable human needs.
>his article resonates with me on many levels. I went from below $10/hr
This experience isn't exactly uncommon.
Everyone who had a job during college in a state with a single digit minimum wage then got an entry level tech job in a high CoL area did this.
That said, most people who do that don't suddenly find themselves among people who significantly higher up the social ladder when they do that which I think is what you were getting at.
> I often wonder why no one's mother didn't fill the these people's mouth with dawn liquid soap and slap the child silly, but then I realize that honesty wasn't a life or death situation for them.
What? This is just child abuse. Please expand on what circumstances in which this considered OK?
I disagree its a simple as class & money, there is no such thing as "the rich" or "the workers". Old money vs New Money, West Coast vs East Coast, South Vs North, Coastal vs Midwest, Lawyers vs Tech, USA vs Europe there are a million sub-classes of "Rich" and even more subclasses of working class esp in NYC. Yes I completely agree its very difficult to change your behavior/job/class like the guys in the article. Its also difficult for a middle class Alaskan to make friends in NY or female nerd to enjoy working in tech or a fat lazy MidWesterner to make friends in Malibu.
The more class/religious/language/wealth/cultural/racial/geographic barriers your cross the more difficult it is to change, but the Guardian often reduces this to a class war which is overly simplified.
This article is not really about "class passing." It is about "upper class passing." The fact that it uses the term class passing solely to mean you went up in status and need to fit in there is part of the problem. In this framing, lower classes are negated as legitimate social classes.
My maternal grandmother's maiden name begins with von. She came from a low level German noble family. They sold the title when the family fell on hard times.
I was homeless for about a year before I recognized how upper class my mother's expectations were. I didn't think we were upper class. My mother worked as a maid. My father had been a soldier and failed to establish a second career after he left the army. I also didn't think we had money. We weren't millionaires, but when they bought a house when I was 3, my dad had 3/4 of the cost of the house in the bank. They put down such a large down payment that their mortgage payment was about 40 percent of what the neighbors were paying.
I sometimes met people on the street with upper class manners. These were bitter people, failing to adapt to current reality.
I grew up learning to power dress. Being homeless taught me something I had not ever been able to figure out before: how to stop intimidating people and stop trying to win the damn pecking order game, a game I loathe but couldn't stop playing. I learned to wear t shirts with cartoons on them and to see that as a good thing, not something I should be ashamed of or embarrassed by or apologize for.
I learned to be approachable, a skill I never had before. That enormous confidence and ego this article talks about? It is obnoxious behavior that sticks out like a sore thumb in a group of not rich folks. It intimidates ordinary people.
It signals you have power they lack. You feel untouchable. You are confident that even if you fuck up, everything will work out okay.
Ordinary people don't feel that way. When it is clear you do, they know they are dealing with an asshole who will not hesitate to fuck up their life, whether due to obliviousness or casual malice.
Learning to class pass runs both ways. The fact that we don't talk or think like it does tells you how much contempt we fundamentally have for the little people.
There is a difference between those who actually have money and class vs people desperately trying to project the image of money and class. Anyone concerned about 'class-passing' should be aware that it's not the top that is behaviorally constraining, it is the middle.
The people most obsessed with putting up the act of their high class are those whom aren't there yet. The mid level professional who is working 80hrs a week and making $90k/yr will absolutely put on the whole 1% act. They will buy the luxury car, fancy clothes/watch/jewelry etc... and be in debt up to their eyeballs. They will also be the first to notice/comment on anyone who isn't up to their 'standards' while standing on cliquish etiquette rules.
Conversely working with true high net worth individuals is rarely an exercise in gate keeping. In many cases their standards for behavior are much lower than you would expect because the competitive pressure is off. You'll find that people with millions in the bank are more humble/genuine than those whom are trying to act the part.
As someone who's navigated their way from poor->middle class->upper middle class I can give a bit of perspective that I rarely see mentioned in these articles...
One of the biggest barriers to moving up in class is the people in your starter class. Family, friends, neighbors... almost all of them will start to get very aggressive with you if you seriously try to better yourself. I remember being accused of using too many "five dollar words", being a nerd for spending time learning technology, being a loser for reading books! I found the crab bucket mentality to be very real. I tried to encourage others to have the strength to stand against it, but few did. I don't really talk to anyone I knew from back then anymore.
Going from middle to upper middle was interesting as well. There you also see pressure to stay as you are but it's less overt and more of a second order effect of trying to keep up with the Jones. The amount of debt that I saw the average middle class person bury themselves in just to achieve what they thought represented a slightly higher class than they actually lived was astounding. You can't move up in class when you're living paycheck to paycheck to pay for your car leases, oversized mortgage and credit cards balances that are full from paying for regular international travel.
Every step I've made has meant breaking ties with the people who weren't happy to see me move on. Now I find myself at the glass ceiling and this time there's very real pressure from above to stay where I'm at. Rich people may let you in the door occasionally but it will be on their terms. It's up to you as a person to decide if you're willing to contort yourself to their demands. Yes you can "hit it big" with a startup or something but there's a lot of chance involved in that. At this stage you're best off living below your means and investing since upper middle class people have a pretty meaningful revenue stream. Just not enough to call it quits and retire.
If you want a quick hack to be seen as high class and authoritative (and you probably do since this is hackernews) in any situation just follow this one simple rule: Don’t move your head around so much, keep it straight forward and still. If you must look at things, do so only by moving your eyes, not rotating your whole head. If you need to turn your gaze more, turn your whole body. Look at things with intent, and on your own terms.
It is noticeable the resentment in this thread of the arbitrary BS you have to go through when you change classes to not seem awkward. But we should remind ourselves there is a whole bunch of arbitrary BS we common folk are just used to. It isn't that the higher classes have more BS, it is just that it is not ingrained to your experience, so it is frustrating that your habits for interaction do not work. I would prefer we get rid of lots of arbitrary BS at every level, but unfortunately you can't fight the system.
Like most articles of this type, this article focuses exclusively on the upwardly mobile. And why not? They are usually interesting productive members of society. But downward mobility is a thing too, and you almost never see an article about class mobility talk about that side of it. I guess the idea is that the downwardly mobile aren't interesting, or deserve their fate. The downwardly mobile have children too. Learning to lose the manners of the ghetto when living among the upper class is quite useful , but learning to hide the manners of the upper class when living in the ghetto is often a matter of survival.
Intergenerational mobility is a really interesting topic- I played around with a transition matrix for a high school project about Markov chains. I can't dig up the table right now but I believe it was based on data from around 2008 and was split into quintiles- i.e. the table tracked the income jump between you and your parents with bucket sizes set at every 20%.
What I'd really like to see is a similar table with smaller bucket sizes- namely, I'd like to see the intergenerational migration rates on the higher buckets. If we start seeing higher retention rates on the higher buckets and less entry into them from lower buckets, then we might be headed into a more fixed-class situation.
My Mom was a immigrant who came from the Philippines. My dad was a polish person. I raised my income and made more than them by a few ways.
1. Figuring out how to get a degree in Computer Science. (I chose a state school UIC)
2. Getting a Job in CS (I worked at the school I had classes from and then transitioned to a real job locally).
The way I did it was taking my resume and applying to jobs I believe I was qualified in. I taught myself web development in high school and continued to be interested in it. I went to meetups to network with people.
All of this wouldn't be possible without my mom having a job at the local grocery store. Or my parents supporting me when I was getting my degree.
I suppose it's passe to report like this, but the irony of making this statement, "Nevertheless, the country remains enamored of these rags-to-riches tales which perpetuate the myth that, in the US, anything is possible if you pull yourself up by your bootstraps.", in a story where they are talking to someone who did exactly that means it isn't a myth is it? Myths by definition are 'not real', 'imaginary', or 'allegorical'. So this story clearly happened, it is clearly real, so it doesn't qualify as a myth. And yet the author throws out there this narrative that implies it is. Frustrating.
It also focuses on the east coast experience. Anyone who has lived in the US for any length of time knows that "social societies" in the US have a variety of roots, whether it is the bloodlines of the deep south, the money makers of wall street, the entertainment moguls of LA, or the tech whizzes of the North west.
I don't have visibility into other areas but I know that with just Apple, Facebook, and Google they have moved thousands of people from having a negative net worth, to having a net worth in excess of a $1M. You meet them when they go to seminars about diversifying one's wealth, or at events that have been expressly targeted to HNWI[1] types.
And "Class Passing", a reference perhaps to a practice where light skinned blacks would present themselves as white to avoid discrimination? If that is what they were going for its a bit provocative is it not? Especially for what is essentially a story that says "Some of the people we need/want to hang out with for social reasons are really annoying/irritating/offensive." That has nothing to do with 'wealth' or 'class' and everything to do with groups that self identify with offensive traits or values.
An interesting story is one where you are suddenly much wealthier or much less wealthy than people in your current social group that you like. How do you keep those relationship vital and alive in the presence of this disparate wealth. I have watched many people struggle with that and some master it effortlessly. I'd love to collect those stories and pull out the essence of how to make that work in an accessible way.
[1] "High Net Worth Individual." You know that this is what the market thinks you are when you get a box of artisan chocolate with a brochure describing a service for providing private air transportation on demand for you and your friends.
The first step to understanding the class system is to differentiate between class and wealth. Class has very little to do with wealth, and it is mostly determined by your upbringing, mannerisms, profession, lifestyle and network.
A high net worth is helpful but insufficient for gaining entry to the higher class. It can also work against you, if you’re too visible with your money and spend it frivolously. For example, buying brand name designer clothing is not a traditionally “high class activity”, and would mark you as being, at best, nouveau riche.
The modern class structure is very complex, but can more or less be broken down to the following:
1. The “out of sight upper class”, who mostly keep to themselves and stay out of the public eye, especially as a reaction to public perception after the Great Depression. They are typically wealthy but not necessarily billionaires, and they live off of their capital instead of any particular profession. To be in this class, formally speaking, you must have been a part of the upper class for a couple of generations. You accelerate access into this class by elevating your family through e.g. high political achievement.
2. The upper class, who understand that they are not the true upper class. The nouveau riche with the potential to join the out of sight class also fall in here. Their children or grandchildren might be members of the out of sight class if their upbringing is “correct”. They have wealth or status, but have not had it for very long. Depending on their proclivities, they might not ever join the out of sight class because they’re too “visible”, for lack of a better word. These are traditionally doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, and these days, software engineers. They have “respectable” careers and diversify themselves from the majority of their professional peers.
3. The middle class, who traditionally experience anxiety about their place in the class system, and who are encouraged to raise their status through their professional achievements. They associate high class with high class “things”, like brand name furniture, but don’t fully internalize the nuances of what makes for a high status individual. By definition, they can’t really perceive the true lifestyle of the upper class, which is why they associate it with things that are only externalities of its members.
4. The lower class, who are mostly incapable of differentiating between wealth and class, even if specifically told about it. They typically lack education and are very nearly always impoverished. But importantly, even a wealthy person can be a member of the lower class if they share its lifestyle and understanding of the class system. Many nouveau riche who earned their wealth through the entertainment industry and who are exceptionally visible are essentially barred from being part of the upper class.
The modern suit is very illustrative of the nuances in the hierarchy. A middle class individual might “splurge” on a suit from Mens Wearhouse. A low class individual will buy a suit from a highly visible fashion brand, like Armani. An upper class individual will buy a suit and have it tailored to fit, probably from a less “loud” designer in Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom. The out of sight class will wear bespoke suits from a tailor on Saville Row, or a similarly understated venue of high prestige.
If this all sounds exceptionally pretentious, that’s because it is. The class system does not revolve around money, it revolves around prestige. It is mostly associated with money because that’s politically expedient on the national stage. That said, wealth is something of a class multiplier - it is difficult to remain in the middle class once you’re wealthy, and more often than not you’ll end up in either the lower class or the upper class depending on your lifestyle and spending habits.
[+] [-] staunch|8 years ago|reply
This is the most insidious part.
The media in the US has historically been 100% controlled by rich people, and all major media still is.
The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can distract them from the fact that they're all being economically exploited and subjected to wage slavery.
The US has gotten richer and richer, if it functioned properly everyone could have enough without resorting to any radical policies. But as long as 70%+ of Americans are wallowing in economic depression there will be no lasting social progress. Just the way most rich people hope it stays.
The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US. People are just waking up to how bad it is. The #MeToo movement only happened because rich people are losing media control, and it's just one of many to come.
[+] [-] untog|8 years ago|reply
I'm unconvinced. The class system is, at its core, money. And short of eBay allowing people to sell second hand items peer to peer, I really don't think the internet has enabled economic mobility all that much. A select few in Silicon Valley have gotten very rich, certainly, but an effect on the population at large? Maybe it'll happen one day, but even stuff like Bitcoin has somehow transformed from "the new cash" to "the new speculative investment that promises to make people with disposable income even richer".
[+] [-] lisper|8 years ago|reply
Right. I'm sure that the fact that the leading internet companies are run by Harvard (FB) and Stanford (Google) grads will not interfere with the Revolution in any way.
[+] [-] PopsiclePete|8 years ago|reply
If the last two years have shown anything, it's that the "common man" in America is extremely susceptible to cheap propaganda and misinformation.
Half the country would happily watch the entire thing burn down as long as "their team" is doing the burning.
The "plebs", so to speak, have never been more controlled than they are today. If anything, I'm more pessimistic than ever.
Powerful interests will be able to harness the massive amounts of data collected by social media to carefully formulate and craft the exact message they want to control who they want and people who I thought would easily see through that are now completely brainwashed into believing things that they would have laughed at 20 years ago.
The rich will be fine, and the poor will eat each other alive, just as they're told to by the other rich men on the TV.
[+] [-] mancerayder|8 years ago|reply
I don't buy it. First of all, the class system is about material interests - real physical tangible interests - and not about feelings. Even if 99% of the people live in a world of ideas, the ruling class, by virtue of the fact that they have to bargain over laws (multi hundred page documents that decide taxation and allocation as well as employee and business rights), live in the world of the material.
The American populace lives, and probably since at least the mid 20th century has lived, in a world of ideas. By this I mean, the country is torn asunder by feelings about abortion, race, gender and so forth, immigration [edit: and also celebrity-lead culture] -- all issues that, guess what, don't even touch the interests of the .01%.
#MeToo poses no threat whatsoever to any class system.
[+] [-] hsitz|8 years ago|reply
http://www.thebookoflife.org/countries-for-losers-countries-...
I live in the U.S., but I think I'd prefer to live in one of the countries for losers.
[+] [-] CM30|8 years ago|reply
Yeah, this is something I've been thinking about for a while too. It's very convenient that the whole 'Occupy' thing got followed up by a huge push for social justice beliefs and comments about deplorables. Like someone didn't want the attention to be focused on the rich, and thought a bit of interclass warfare would be a nice distraction about now.
You can see a huge media political shift about this time too.
But hey, maybe I'm coming across as paranoid here.
[+] [-] emodendroket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] afuchs|8 years ago|reply
Stated this way, this appears to handwave real problems away. Yes, racial and gender issues are often exploited for political gain; but these issues usually have a basis in real problems.
[+] [-] stcredzero|8 years ago|reply
Uh, have you been paying attention to campus protesters?
The US has gotten richer and richer, if it functioned properly everyone could have enough without resorting to any radical policies.
It's not quite that simple, due to human psychology. Even if people are wealthy on a global and historical scale, relative poverty will still cause problems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3XYHPAwBzE
[+] [-] cabalamat|8 years ago|reply
Maybe. A prerequisite would be for most people to realise that class is more important than gender and race.
[+] [-] randyrand|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxxxxx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] thescriptkiddie|8 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/...
[+] [-] Veelox|8 years ago|reply
What definition are you using for economic depression?
[+] [-] Hasz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yakitori|8 years ago|reply
Things have gotten worse as capital consolidated all the industries. Now we have an illusion of choice. When you go to the supermarket, there seems to be tons of variety of products by many companies. After all, there are so many brands. But all these brands are owned by a handful of companies. The same thing with banking. The last financial crisis was used by the FED ( a banking cartel ) to get large multinational banks to buy up smaller regional banks. Regional newspapers are being bought up by major media companies like news corp.
> The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can distract them from the fact that they're all being economically exploited and subjected to wage slavery.
It's not just identity politics. It's also the bread and circuses. Nothing more poignant than the upcoming superbowl where the mindless stuff their faces while watching advertisements for 4 hours.
> The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US.
That's naive. The internet will almost certainly be used to reinforce it. More distractions, more propaganda and more divisions. Look how quickly the wealthy has come down on the internet and social media already. Look at the amount of censorship. Look what happened to youtube trending page and google news. Youtube trending is now all SNL, major news channels and late night shows. Google news is now all washingtonpost, nytimes, etc.
I hope you are right, but experience tells me money wins and the masses are not intelligent enough or united enough to challenge the wealthy. Our political system doesn't allow for it, nor does our education system or the media or anything else.
[+] [-] aje403|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gorpomon|8 years ago|reply
However, this is one issue that's hard to put solely on the foot of the rich or a broader system. Passing in many avenues, not just by class, is really deciding you want to be there and what the terms of your presence will be. It felt at times like trying to get into a club, if you look like you want in, you don't get in. If you don't want in, they let you in. You have to learn to look like you don't want it.
I think rather than teach young children how to hold spoons, or castigate the rich for yet another divide they were born into, probably we should just teach improv skills, confidence skills and encourage people to engage in open dialogue with others. Some solutions don't require us dismantling a system.
If the next time a rich person gives you an askance look and you immediately ask them to explain themselves, guess what, you just equalized yourself with them socially without having to learn which fork to use first.
[+] [-] ikeyany|8 years ago|reply
My experience aligns with the author's. In movies and feel-good stories shared on social media, we romantically idolize the humble rich person, who came from nothing yet somehow stays "true to their roots". And that is a lovely, inspiring mindset necessary to keep people motivated...in theory.
In practice, in order to get ahead in life and to cross class boundaries, you will have to acknowledge that aspects of your upbringing and former way of life are "backwards". You'll have to reconcile that the rich will scorn you and think of your home as a "shithole", and that you "weren't supposed to" make it to the top. You'll have to see things in a new light, and as the author notes, your social life and identity will take a hit (e.g. old friends who won't come to your wedding, or dating prospects who are afraid of being associated with lower classes).
There is a moral failing in our country where the pursuit of money is seen as the objective optimal thing to do. But it's very reasonable to look at how money changes people, and to turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust.
[+] [-] sloppycee|8 years ago|reply
I think the point of the article is that it's not that money changes people, but rather that change begets money; they are interrelated at least.
[+] [-] Helmet|8 years ago|reply
It's also very easy and PC to venerate the poor out of some misguided sense of pity or moral absolutism.
One could look at poor communities, and, as you said "turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust" and choose enrich themselves.
I'm also not entirely, or even in the least bit, convinced that our society, institutions, social structures, and general well-being would be better off WITHOUT class distinctions. Going deeper, they seem to me to be an essential component of civilization, one of the many necessary "glues" of social order.
edit: This site is slowly turning into Reddit - contrarian opinions need not apply. Instead of down-votes, why not rebut what I said? It's not like the matter is settled, and the last couple times the populous tried to "abolish" social classes, mass terror followed.
[+] [-] dizzystar|8 years ago|reply
A huge different that's obvious to me is the language we use. I often wonder why no one's mother didn't fill the these people's mouth with dawn liquid soap and slap the child silly, but then I realize that honesty wasn't a life or death situation for them. I'm often called brutally blunt, but really, I'm very tame compared to most people I grew up around.
As a real example, we often get articles on Hacker News that discusses the best way to hire, best way to land a job, best way to self-learn, and so on. It took me years to realize that these articles were all shaded in a heavy fog of bullshit, and it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog. If I was able to go back in time and tell my autodidact self on thing, it was to learn about bullshit, and it's something I always advise those who trying to self learn.
[+] [-] athenot|8 years ago|reply
Follow the money.
I'm always asking myself "what does this author have to gain from writing this, or holding that position?" It can happen that there is absolutely no financial motive, many times it's pure greed but often it's on a continuum that's a mix of both profit and helping people out.
As an example it's common to find articles about technical problem and how {{top-organization}} solved it with {{state-of-the-art}} solution. The last paragraph is "oh by the way, we're hiring". While there's a profit motive in this form of content marketing, there's also genuine help being passed along.
Business recommendations tend to be a bit more skewed towards the profit side, and financial recommendations… well those are a class of their own.
A health dose of suspicion goes a long way to sort out the BS.
[+] [-] dionidium|8 years ago|reply
For me, the weirdest part is the way in which the upper-middle class people I now associate and work with talk about "my people" (i.e. the working-class folks I grew up with). They mythologize them as the noble, hard-working, salt of the earth, when in reality, they clearly don't like most of their habits, their religion, their tastes, their opinions, their language, or much else about them. Poor and working-class people are described in archetypes, stereotypes, and as abstract ideas. But very little said matches what I know about actual poor people. They are always -- always -- praised when spoken of in the abstract. But when the conversation drifts toward the specific, it's pretty clear that they're not really big fans.
I find myself simultaneously defending the behaviors of the working class while also walking upper-class liberals back a few steps on just how noble and hard-working -- they're always described as hard-working -- most actual poor people really are. They're just people.
[+] [-] ambicapter|8 years ago|reply
Tell me more, please.
[+] [-] tlb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] troupe|8 years ago|reply
Meaning that people making $10 per hours use more or less coarse language than people making $50 per hour?
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|8 years ago|reply
This experience isn't exactly uncommon.
Everyone who had a job during college in a state with a single digit minimum wage then got an entry level tech job in a high CoL area did this.
That said, most people who do that don't suddenly find themselves among people who significantly higher up the social ladder when they do that which I think is what you were getting at.
[+] [-] invalidOrTaken|8 years ago|reply
If your assumptions/situation match those of the author/speaker---it will be good advice. If they don't---bullshit.
[+] [-] _alias|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmeredith|8 years ago|reply
What? This is just child abuse. Please expand on what circumstances in which this considered OK?
[+] [-] rb808|8 years ago|reply
The more class/religious/language/wealth/cultural/racial/geographic barriers your cross the more difficult it is to change, but the Guardian often reduces this to a class war which is overly simplified.
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|8 years ago|reply
My maternal grandmother's maiden name begins with von. She came from a low level German noble family. They sold the title when the family fell on hard times.
I was homeless for about a year before I recognized how upper class my mother's expectations were. I didn't think we were upper class. My mother worked as a maid. My father had been a soldier and failed to establish a second career after he left the army. I also didn't think we had money. We weren't millionaires, but when they bought a house when I was 3, my dad had 3/4 of the cost of the house in the bank. They put down such a large down payment that their mortgage payment was about 40 percent of what the neighbors were paying.
I sometimes met people on the street with upper class manners. These were bitter people, failing to adapt to current reality.
I grew up learning to power dress. Being homeless taught me something I had not ever been able to figure out before: how to stop intimidating people and stop trying to win the damn pecking order game, a game I loathe but couldn't stop playing. I learned to wear t shirts with cartoons on them and to see that as a good thing, not something I should be ashamed of or embarrassed by or apologize for.
I learned to be approachable, a skill I never had before. That enormous confidence and ego this article talks about? It is obnoxious behavior that sticks out like a sore thumb in a group of not rich folks. It intimidates ordinary people.
It signals you have power they lack. You feel untouchable. You are confident that even if you fuck up, everything will work out okay.
Ordinary people don't feel that way. When it is clear you do, they know they are dealing with an asshole who will not hesitate to fuck up their life, whether due to obliviousness or casual malice.
Learning to class pass runs both ways. The fact that we don't talk or think like it does tells you how much contempt we fundamentally have for the little people.
[+] [-] johngalt|8 years ago|reply
The people most obsessed with putting up the act of their high class are those whom aren't there yet. The mid level professional who is working 80hrs a week and making $90k/yr will absolutely put on the whole 1% act. They will buy the luxury car, fancy clothes/watch/jewelry etc... and be in debt up to their eyeballs. They will also be the first to notice/comment on anyone who isn't up to their 'standards' while standing on cliquish etiquette rules.
Conversely working with true high net worth individuals is rarely an exercise in gate keeping. In many cases their standards for behavior are much lower than you would expect because the competitive pressure is off. You'll find that people with millions in the bank are more humble/genuine than those whom are trying to act the part.
[+] [-] angarg12|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malvosenior|8 years ago|reply
One of the biggest barriers to moving up in class is the people in your starter class. Family, friends, neighbors... almost all of them will start to get very aggressive with you if you seriously try to better yourself. I remember being accused of using too many "five dollar words", being a nerd for spending time learning technology, being a loser for reading books! I found the crab bucket mentality to be very real. I tried to encourage others to have the strength to stand against it, but few did. I don't really talk to anyone I knew from back then anymore.
Going from middle to upper middle was interesting as well. There you also see pressure to stay as you are but it's less overt and more of a second order effect of trying to keep up with the Jones. The amount of debt that I saw the average middle class person bury themselves in just to achieve what they thought represented a slightly higher class than they actually lived was astounding. You can't move up in class when you're living paycheck to paycheck to pay for your car leases, oversized mortgage and credit cards balances that are full from paying for regular international travel.
Every step I've made has meant breaking ties with the people who weren't happy to see me move on. Now I find myself at the glass ceiling and this time there's very real pressure from above to stay where I'm at. Rich people may let you in the door occasionally but it will be on their terms. It's up to you as a person to decide if you're willing to contort yourself to their demands. Yes you can "hit it big" with a startup or something but there's a lot of chance involved in that. At this stage you're best off living below your means and investing since upper middle class people have a pretty meaningful revenue stream. Just not enough to call it quits and retire.
[+] [-] matte_black|8 years ago|reply
Try it today.
[+] [-] ErikVandeWater|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FiatLuxDave|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] murph-almighty|8 years ago|reply
What I'd really like to see is a similar table with smaller bucket sizes- namely, I'd like to see the intergenerational migration rates on the higher buckets. If we start seeing higher retention rates on the higher buckets and less entry into them from lower buckets, then we might be headed into a more fixed-class situation.
[+] [-] zitterbewegung|8 years ago|reply
1. Figuring out how to get a degree in Computer Science. (I chose a state school UIC)
2. Getting a Job in CS (I worked at the school I had classes from and then transitioned to a real job locally).
The way I did it was taking my resume and applying to jobs I believe I was qualified in. I taught myself web development in high school and continued to be interested in it. I went to meetups to network with people.
All of this wouldn't be possible without my mom having a job at the local grocery store. Or my parents supporting me when I was getting my degree.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|8 years ago|reply
It also focuses on the east coast experience. Anyone who has lived in the US for any length of time knows that "social societies" in the US have a variety of roots, whether it is the bloodlines of the deep south, the money makers of wall street, the entertainment moguls of LA, or the tech whizzes of the North west.
I don't have visibility into other areas but I know that with just Apple, Facebook, and Google they have moved thousands of people from having a negative net worth, to having a net worth in excess of a $1M. You meet them when they go to seminars about diversifying one's wealth, or at events that have been expressly targeted to HNWI[1] types.
And "Class Passing", a reference perhaps to a practice where light skinned blacks would present themselves as white to avoid discrimination? If that is what they were going for its a bit provocative is it not? Especially for what is essentially a story that says "Some of the people we need/want to hang out with for social reasons are really annoying/irritating/offensive." That has nothing to do with 'wealth' or 'class' and everything to do with groups that self identify with offensive traits or values.
An interesting story is one where you are suddenly much wealthier or much less wealthy than people in your current social group that you like. How do you keep those relationship vital and alive in the presence of this disparate wealth. I have watched many people struggle with that and some master it effortlessly. I'd love to collect those stories and pull out the essence of how to make that work in an accessible way.
[1] "High Net Worth Individual." You know that this is what the market thinks you are when you get a box of artisan chocolate with a brochure describing a service for providing private air transportation on demand for you and your friends.
[+] [-] seqastian|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chicagoscott|8 years ago|reply
http://www.andrewlangman.com/articles/class-culture-gap.html
[+] [-] dsacco|8 years ago|reply
A high net worth is helpful but insufficient for gaining entry to the higher class. It can also work against you, if you’re too visible with your money and spend it frivolously. For example, buying brand name designer clothing is not a traditionally “high class activity”, and would mark you as being, at best, nouveau riche.
The modern class structure is very complex, but can more or less be broken down to the following:
1. The “out of sight upper class”, who mostly keep to themselves and stay out of the public eye, especially as a reaction to public perception after the Great Depression. They are typically wealthy but not necessarily billionaires, and they live off of their capital instead of any particular profession. To be in this class, formally speaking, you must have been a part of the upper class for a couple of generations. You accelerate access into this class by elevating your family through e.g. high political achievement.
2. The upper class, who understand that they are not the true upper class. The nouveau riche with the potential to join the out of sight class also fall in here. Their children or grandchildren might be members of the out of sight class if their upbringing is “correct”. They have wealth or status, but have not had it for very long. Depending on their proclivities, they might not ever join the out of sight class because they’re too “visible”, for lack of a better word. These are traditionally doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, and these days, software engineers. They have “respectable” careers and diversify themselves from the majority of their professional peers.
3. The middle class, who traditionally experience anxiety about their place in the class system, and who are encouraged to raise their status through their professional achievements. They associate high class with high class “things”, like brand name furniture, but don’t fully internalize the nuances of what makes for a high status individual. By definition, they can’t really perceive the true lifestyle of the upper class, which is why they associate it with things that are only externalities of its members.
4. The lower class, who are mostly incapable of differentiating between wealth and class, even if specifically told about it. They typically lack education and are very nearly always impoverished. But importantly, even a wealthy person can be a member of the lower class if they share its lifestyle and understanding of the class system. Many nouveau riche who earned their wealth through the entertainment industry and who are exceptionally visible are essentially barred from being part of the upper class.
The modern suit is very illustrative of the nuances in the hierarchy. A middle class individual might “splurge” on a suit from Mens Wearhouse. A low class individual will buy a suit from a highly visible fashion brand, like Armani. An upper class individual will buy a suit and have it tailored to fit, probably from a less “loud” designer in Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom. The out of sight class will wear bespoke suits from a tailor on Saville Row, or a similarly understated venue of high prestige.
If this all sounds exceptionally pretentious, that’s because it is. The class system does not revolve around money, it revolves around prestige. It is mostly associated with money because that’s politically expedient on the national stage. That said, wealth is something of a class multiplier - it is difficult to remain in the middle class once you’re wealthy, and more often than not you’ll end up in either the lower class or the upper class depending on your lifestyle and spending habits.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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