jarcher@crl.com
: John D. Archer wrote:
:
:   You know as well as I do that class is a very elusive concept.  The
:  basic idea that there are different groups within a society that
: exercise power over other groups in the pursuit of their aggenda is one
: that is hard to friviously dismiss.  Wealth certainly provides an entree
: into the power elites (Mills), as does education, race, networking, and
: family of orgin.
:   Using wealth alone as the criteria for class distinctions is a bogus
:   approach to the subject, as any good Sociologist will tell you.  The
:   discussion has centered around whether wage earners have been able to
:   exercise enough power to gain ground economically or, being relatively
:   deprived of power, have lost ground relative to the economic power
:   elites.

: >jim blair wrote:
: > Hi,
: > Before I can reply to you, I would need to know just what you consider
: > to be a "class". How many classes do you consider there to be in the USA
: > today, and what are they? What is the approximate size of each? And are
: > the SAME people in each of these classes today as 10 years ago? (ie what
: > is the "life time" for individuals in each of these classes?.

: And to elaborate on my last: I have found that different people use the
: word class to mean different things.

: Economists usually talk (and THINK!) in terms of Income Quintiles, or
: Income Deciles.  Top 20% of income earners, etc. These are often treated
: as if they were "classes", as in "the income of the top quintile
: increased by X% in the last decade, while the bottom decile dropped by
: Y%", etc.

: The trouble here is that DIFFERENT people are in these quintiles a decade
: later. See my web page file "Income Mobility" (the table and the
: discussion at the bottom).

: Others think in terms of "upper class, middle class, lower class". And I
: think they mean income or wealth, but sometimes they blur this with
: "values". I have even heard it claimed that an increase in the gax tax
: (or the beer tax) will hit the "middle class"! Not drivers, (or
: drinkers).

: Some talk of "ruling class". While this may apply to some countries, and
: the USA does have political families (Kennedy's, Roosevelts, etc.) we
: have had so many leaders from outside this structure (Truman, Eisenhower
: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, etc.), I just don't see it as 
: valid here.

Sorry that I didn't reply sooner, stuff happens.  I have to agree
with what you're saying here, class is not a very useful analytic
tool anymore, if, in fact, it ever was.  Even though the Communist
Manifesto begins with "There are two great classes...," Marx seemed
to talk about a great many other classes in his writings.  He differentated
landowners from the bougousie (for reasons that aren't exactly clear to me),
he distinguished between peasantry and the proleterait, mentions the
aristocracy, petit bougousie, lumpen proleterait, etc.  So, its seems that
for Marx, who argueably had a simpler social structure to deal with than
the present US structure, two classes were inadequate.  Likewise, the
division you note above into lower, middle, and upper class is inadequate
for anything but the most general commentary.  In the example above, the
use of class is simply shorthand for the concept (which I see as correct)
that regressive taxes and use fees take a higher proportion of income for
those near the middle of the income distribution compared to those at the
high end, all other things being equal.

Sorting into classes economically is not very useful, however, when
it comes to predicting what a group's interests, attitudes, and future
probable behavior are.  In the U.S., we would probably call someone
with a $60,000 a year income middle class.  The problem with trying to
assign class interest to this group, however, is exemplified by the
fact that we might find a union machinist, manager for a midsized
company, owner of a mom and pop grocery, and social worker making
about 60K.  These people could reasonably be expected to disagree on
all sorts of economic and social issues.  The social worker and the
machinist, for example, would probably want to see policies that
contributed to higher wages while the manager and grocery owner
want to limit wages.

Current thinking amoung Demographers and Sociologists is that class
is based on SES (Socio-Economic Status).  Unfortunately, this does
little to clearify exactly what a class consists of.  It really, to
my way of thinking, it destroys the concept.  That's because once we
start considering all the social, economic, and status positions a
person may occupy, it becomes apparent that there are almost an
unlimited number of "classes."  Consider:  A person that is white
and northern views a number of issues differently than a person that
is white and southern.  A person that works as a garbage collector
has a lower status than someone that teaches high school, although
the garbage collector may earn more.  As noted above, different
occupations produce differing points of view.  In fine, the idea
of SES makes society a n dimensional space in which "classes" of
one are possible.   Obviously, this is a long way from the way
early social writers used the term and the way most of us use the
term in everyday speech.

So, my view of class is that it is a purely nominative term intended
to provide a heuristic handle for talking about about groups within
society.  It does no great harm to use the term as long as we are
clear about what unstated concepts we are trying to express by using
it, as in your example of regressive taxation.

Ruling class is a misnomer, I perfer the appellation "elites."  An
elite (as C. Wright Mills used the term) is a group with common
interests from which flows an aggenda.  The thing that seperates
elites from groups with just an aggenda is that elites have the
power necessary to accomplish their goals.  Although there may be
no ruling class, there is certainly political power structure that,
in your example, necessarily has to act on a persons behalf in order
that he become President.  In other words, you or I couldn't wake up
tomorrow morning with a new vision to bring peace and prosperity to
the nation and expect to get elected in 2000.  In Mills view, it is
the political power structure selects and places the canidate before
the electorate.  Well and good, then, someone may say, Mills is talking
about the political party.  Well, yes and no, because elites often
overlap or pool their resources in order to achieve their goals.  Thus
the canidate must pass muster with financial elites, the business
community, etc., who in turn aid the political power structure in
accomplishing its goals.  Once their canidate is elected, the political
elite sees to it that policy conforms to the wishes of the other
elites with which it collaborated.  I think Mills was correct that
such elites exist and are relatively enduring and achieve moderate
success in obtaining there goals.  I would not, however, agree with
the paranoid extremes to which he subscribed, he comes across in places
as a wild eyed conspiracy theorist.  At any rate, I think he was
substantially correct in his belief that such groups exist and are
relatively enduring and freqently have aggendas that are at odds with
the greatest good for society.

: I think the most rigid social structure is "caste". People not only spend
: their entire life in one caste,  but their children, grand parents, etc
: for many generations are also of the same caste.


: Less rigid is "class", but to really be a "class" don't people have to at
: least spend their entire life in one of them?

You're right in your definitions, although I'm not aware of any
requirement that a person must spend their entire life in a class to
be a member of it.  Common usage, however, would presume a lenghty
stay in a class.

: If you are in one of them for part of your life and in another/others at
: other times, aren't they just "catagories".

Well, all classes are are nominative catagories.  I think one of the
biggest pitfalls in the social sciences is the tendancy to creat a
classification scheme and then reify it.


AND THIS FROM:

northsider <northsider@bellsouth.net>:

Just for the record I will add my ideas on what the fives classes are:

#1. First you have the true upperclass, the superich who can pretty much
buy whatever they want unless, of course, they really try to buy "the
moon." There may be some in this group who are truly overextended; but,
so long as no one knows about it, they get away with it.

This group is also subdivided in "old money" and "new money."

#2. The lower upper or upper middle class. These are the wealthy
professionals and nowadays many technical people as well. They are the
people with very nice houses, maybe a new car every year or near to it,
and a boat. Your friend sounds like he might be here. Anyway, these
people expect all their children to go to college. A scholarship would
be nice; but, college will still be arranged anyway. A vacation to
Europe can be quickly arranged for if desired.

These people don't have the reserves of the superich; but, with a little
planning, they can pretty much arrange for anything they could
reasonably want.

#3.  This might be the true middle class; but, in my opinion it is
shrinking with its members either moving up or falling down to the
adjacent class. It includes professional and technical people who are
not doing quite as well as in #2 as well as some well paid blue jobs.
These people may own there own homes; but, it is not quite as nice as
those in #2. They might even have a new car; but, not every year. If
there is a boat, it is very likely a rowboat. If their children go to
college, a scholarship will definitely be required. A trip to Europe,
not likely; but, they do get to vacation within the US.

#4. The lower middle or upper lower class. This is what is sometimes
called "the working poor;" and, when many of us say "working class" this
is the group we mean as well. IMO this is the group in the greatest
crisis and also the group which has shown the greatest change in the
past fifty years. They used to comprise our manufacturing base. These
factory jobs often were life long jobs with benefits. A person could
work his way up to supervisor and beyond with not even a high school
education. When a boy, sometimes a girl, finished school Daddy took them
to the plant and they would find a place for them. Those jobs have now
either moved to other countries or require training that can be very
hard to get. Now these peole work at whatever job they can get generally
at low wages with no benefits. They never know when they will be laid
off permanently; and, have to look for another job. They live in fear of
illness because they have no health insurance. They live in fear that
beat up old car just might not make it another day and then how do they
get to work? Sometimes they own their own home; but, its either an old
shack or it was bought a long time ago, when conditions were different.
More and more of them are being forced to abandon their homes and live
in apartments. Sometimes, if they can get financial aid, their children
go to community college; but, more and more that is out of reach and
their children end up like them going from what job they can get to what
job they can get.

#5. Call them the lower lower class. These are the people who
chronically cannot get their lives together as well as some people,
generally from class #4, who have have had a run of bad luck or made a
few bad choices; but, we are all human. I suspect that the longer these
people stay in this group the more chronic their condition becomes. The
problem is that we seldom help people until they are in this group with
little hope of getting out.

I believe our aim should be to prevent people from falling into this
group. This means more aid to group #4, the working poor.

Aid is not necessarily more money. It can be among, things more access
to information.

Each group has its own attitudes and coping mechanism. Some people often
seem to get into trouble when they move into another social class; but,
keep the same coping mechanism.

I am not saying all this is absolute. In a world with some 5 or so
billion people, there has got to be enough variation to have plenty of
exceptions; but, this is what I have observed is generally true; and, by
generally I mean that it is what you will most often find, not that it
is what you will always find.


=Sandra=
Spend too much time with people of like mind and you will lose yours.
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hollow/8379/
http://members.tripod.com/~nsider/

AND THIS from sci.econ May 17, 2004:

"If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly
winning." -- Warren Buffet

royls@telus.net wrote:
>
>Yes, there are different kinds of class.....

>
>>>IMO the current economically and socially significant class divides in
>>>the USA are:
>>>
>>>Lower class: poor because not working
>>>Lower middle class: working poor
>>>Middle class: typical working people
>>>Upper middle class: affluent because high-income working
>>>Upper class: affluent without working
>>>
>>>It's the upper class as defined above that Buffet was referring to as
>>>his.

jeb:
>>
>>And when you say "poor", "typical" and "affluent", does that refer to 
>>wealth or income?

royls@telus.net:
>
>Lifestyle, which I would say goes with level of consumption rather
>than income or wealth.

Hi,

I also see "class" as more related to "lifestyle" than to either 
income or wealth. And it does not always correlate with "consumption". 
In my own case (and from the experience of some people I know) living 
an "upper class" lifestyle can be done on a mid-range income while 
having little wealth.  

When I was teaching at Milton College for example, my income was well 
below the national average, and since I was young I had little wealth. 
But I was able to spend my summers sailing (call it yatching ;-) on 
the lakes in Madison and my winters scuba diving in the Virgin Islands.
And I spent one entire summer living in Hiafa, Israel and touring the 
historic sights of the Holy Land. Isn't that living at lot like the 
"upper class"?  

(even if I did this in a low budget manner).

And some of the other Miltion faculty lived similar lifestyles. While 
we didn't have money, we did have time, and made good use of it.

                     ,,,,,,,
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jim blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin
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