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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.
2 replies on “An Education on Social Class”
Great thoughts. I have a brother that has a lot higher income than me. But he has worked like crazy to build a business for a couple of decades. He works many more hours than me every week and he travels constantly.
My brother has a much nicer house than me and is much higher than me on the ‘class’ scale you discuss, but I don’t begrudge him any of this one bit. I am frankly unwilling to pay the price he pays to get what he has.
Removing the rewards for doing the kind of work my brother does would remove incentives to do that kind of work. The jobs he has created wouldn’t exist. The products his company manufactures and distributes wouldn’t exist.
Classless societies never are truly classless, except that the masses in those societies share an abundance of poverty (while the ruling class lives relatively opulently).The only examples where this has not been the case have been in the scriptures where the people became religiously united.
Since we’re not about to develop religious unity on any sizable scale, attempts to go class free on any sizable scale will result in Soviet style classlessness. That sure sounds enticing.
The rare instances of religious unity that resulted in classless societies came about precisely because the people in the upper classes abandoned their excess property because they cared more for their fellow men than for the temporal rewards such as your brother has earned (I’m not trying to suggest anything about your brother). What we might fail to note is that the poorer classes in those societies did not envy their wealthy brethren and sought only to be treated fairly for their own efforts. Neither class sought for temporal wealth. No legislation could cause that to happen.
So our real goal should be open classes rather than classlessness.