You are on page 1of 5

2 A CLASS APART

NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION

DRAWING CL ASS DISTINCTIONS FEELS almost un-American. The na-


tions self-image is of a classless society, one in which every indi-
vidual is of equal moral worth, regardless of his or her economic
status. This has been how the world sees the United States, too.
Alexis de Tocqueville observed that Americans were seen to
be more equal in fortune and intelligencemore equally strong,
in other wordsthan they were in any other country, or were
at any other time in recorded history.1
So different to the countries of old Europe, still weighed
down by the legacies of feudalism. British politicians have often
felt the need to urge the creation of a classless society, looking
to America for inspiration as, what historian David Canna-
dine once described, the pioneering and prototypical classless
society.2
European progressives have long looked enviously at social
relations in the New World. George Orwell noted the lack of

17
18 DREAM HOARDERS

servile tradition in America; German socialist Werner Som-


bart noticed that the bowing and scraping before the upper
classes, which produces such an unpleasant impression in Eu-
rope, is completely unknown.3 This is one of many reasons so-
cialist politics struggled to take root in the United States. A key
attraction of socialist systemsthe main one, according to
Orwellis the eradication of class distinctions. There were few
to eradicate in America. I am sure that one reason Downton
Abbey and The Crown so delight American audiences is their
depictions of an alien world of class-based status.
One reason class distinctions are less obvious in America
NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION

is that pretty much everyone defines themselves as a member


of the same class: the one in the middle. Nine in ten adults se-
lect the label middle class,4 exactly the same proportion as in
1939, according to Gallup. No wonder politicians have always
fallen over each other to be on their side.
But in recent decades, Americans at the top of the ladder
have been entrenching their class position. The convenient fic-
tion that the middle class can stretch up that far has become
a difficult one to sustain. As a result, the modifications upper
or lower to the general middle-class category have become
more important.
Class is not just about money, though it is about that. The
class gap can be seen from every angle: education, security,
family, health, you name it. There will also be inequalities on
each of these dimensions, of course. But inequality becomes
class division when all these varied elementsmoney, edu-
cation, wealth, occupation cluster together so tightly that, in
practice, almost any one of them will suffice for the purposes of
class definition. Class division becomes class stratification when
these advantagesand, thus, statusendure across generations.
In fact, as Ill show in the next chapter, upper middle-class sta-
A Class Apart 19

tus is passed down to the next generation more effectively


than in the past and in the United States more than in other
countries.
One benefit of the multidimensional nature of this separation
is that it has reduced interdisciplinary bickering over how to
define class. While economists typically focus on categorization
by income and wealth, and sociologists tend more toward occu-
pational status and education, and anthropologists are typically
more interested in culture and norms, right now it doesnt really
matter, since all the trends are going the same way.
By now you may be experiencing a slight sense of dj vu.
NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION

After all, the separation of an affluent, well-educated class has


been the subject of more than one book. Producing another vol-
ume about class and inequality might then seem redundant. But
I think some of the most popular efforts to date have diagnosed
the class fracture incorrectly. Some analysts have let the upper
middle class off the hook (yes, that would be you) by pointing at
the super-rich or top 1 percent. Take the new rock star of
economic history, Thomas Piketty. For him, inequality is pretty
much all about the top 1 percent.
Others have looked through a slightly wider lens. In Com-
ing Apart, Charles Murray describes an isolated New Upper
Class, comprised of the most successful adults (and their spouses),
working in managerial positions, the professions, or with se-
nior jobs in the media. This class, according to Murray, is de-
fined as much by elitist culturetastes and preferencesas
by economic standing, and accounts for just 5 percent of the
population.
Robert Putnam, in Our Kids, has a broader group in mind.
When I speak of kids from upper class homes, he writes, I
simply mean that at least one of their parents (usually both)
graduated from college. This represents, Putnam estimates,
20 DREAM HOARDERS

about one third of the population.5 Putnams concern is really


with the bottom third, who he fears are being left behind.
Where these scholars agree, however, is on the right label
for those at the top, whether it is 1 percent, 5 percent, or even
30 percent: the upper class. It is easy to see why. It is an easy
idea to graspthe upper class is simply the people at the top of
the pile. To be honest, my editors would have preferred me to
use upper class, too. But I stuck with the longer, uglier, wonk-
ier upper middle class. This is not just semantics. If people
are encouraged to think inequality is an upper-class problem,
something important is lost. Most of us think of the upper class
NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION

as the thin slice at the very top, but the tectonic plates are sepa-
rating lower down. It is not just the top 1 percent pulling away,
but the top 20 percent.
In fact, as figure 2-1 shows, only a very small proportion of
U.S. adults1 to 2 percentdefine themselves as upper class.
A significant minorityabout one in sevenadopts the upper
middle class description. This is quite similar to the esti-
mates of class size generated by most sociologists, who tend to
define the upper middle class as one composed of professionals
and managers, or around 1520 percent of the working-age
population.
These self-definitions are a useful starting point, providing
some sense of how people see themselves on the class ladder.
But for analytical purposes, we need a more objective, and mea-
surable, yardstick. But which to choose? After all, Ive been at
pains to argue that class is made up of a subtle, shifting blend of
economic, social, educational, and attitudinal factors.
Income provides the cleanest instrument with which to dis-
sect the class distribution because it is easier to track over time
and to compare between individuals and families (perhaps also
because I work with a lot of economists). Income is also what
A Class Apart 21

FIGURE 2-1 A Middle Class Nation


Percent

2008
50
2014
40

30

20

10
NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION

Lower Class Lower Middle Middle Class Upper Middle Upper Class
Class Class

Source: January 2014 Political Survey (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research


Center for the People and the Press/USA Today, 2014) (www.people-press
.org/files/legacy-questionnaires/1-23-14%20Poverty_Inequality%20topline
%20for%20release.pdf). Respondents were asked If you were asked to use
one of these commonly used names for the social classes, which would you
say you belong in? The upper class, upper-middle class, middle class, lower-
middle class, or lower class?

philosophers call an instrumental good, bringing many other


benefits along with it. In the remainder of this chapter, Ill show
the growing economic divide between the top fifth and the rest
and then how the upper middle class, as defined by income, is
separating on other dimensions, too.
Before diving into some of the data, a big caveat: Americas
growing class division does not mean that categorical inequali-
ties on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender have disappeared.
If anything, the relative position of black Americans has wors-
ened in recent years, as I have argued elsewhere.6 There are
also race gaps in access to some of the mechanisms of class

You might also like