An Education on Social Class

I read a chapter today that was intent on destroying the myth of American egalitarianism and our "classless" social structure. I almost laugh at the idea of a society without classes based on the amount of time we spend talking about the middle class (and how to get in or out of it). I also believe that nobody who has lived even one decade of their adult life in the United States can still believe the myth of American egalitarianism. If we have a meritocracy (as we often claim) then it is one where the greatest merit is being born into a family that is well off economically.

One of the problems I have with all discussions of social classes and social inequality is that they are all based on assumptions about the desirability of eliminating social class and a definition of class that is based primarily on economic factors. I understand that economic factors are used to define class because money is used to enforce social position and because class structures tend to coalesce around different strata of economic situation. While that makes sense, my problem is that those who discuss it imply that redistributing the wealth would break the class structure – and that it would be a positive change.

I believe that there is nothing wrong with having different social classes so long as those classes are not strictly enforced, in other words I don’t view it as a problem so long as people are allowed to change classes. In other words, a system that distinguishes classes but treats people of different classes with equal respect and equal rights is perfectly acceptable to me. (This does not mean that I will argue that our society embodies such a system.)

I also believe that inequality of wealth and income is not inherently undesirable. It again comes back to a question of whether people with differing levels of wealth or income are treated equitably. If the inequalities are achieved through dishonesty or manipulation that indicates a problem. This is true whether we are talking about individual wealth or whether we are talking about corporate market-share (thus the reason to be wary of monopolies).

I think the greatest thing we can do with regard to education on the issue of social classes is to tell the truth – that classes exist – and to work to ensure that we eliminate  preferential treatment of one class over another (that goes for any kind of class, whether economic or otherwise) and manipulation intended to dishonestly profit.

If we would accept the existence of classes and then work to remove those negative elements that generally tag along with the class system people could feel empowered and we could have a true meritocracy where people advanced among the classes based on their personal strengths and fell based on theri own weaknesses.