(2016-01-30) Alexander Staying Classy

Scott Alexander: Staying Classy. Siderea writes an essay on class in America. You should read it. In case you don’t, here’s the summary:

Siderea links to Michael Church’s attempt to explain what the classes actually are. This is another piece you should read, but again in case you don’t: (social class)

23.5% of people are in the gentry class. They fetishize education and career capital

1.5% of people are in the elite class.

The three main classes (labor, gentry, and elite) are three different ‘infrastructures’. To be in labor you need skills, to be in gentry you need education, and to be in elite you need connections

Elites have a generally negative influence on society, and Gentry are generally positive

Siderea notes that Church’s analysis independently reached about the same conclusion as Paul Fussell’s famous guide. (2021-02-24) Alexander Book Review Fussell On Class

There’s one more discussion of class I remember being influenced by, and that’s Unqualified Reservations’ Castes of the United States. Another one that you should read but that I’ll summarize in case you don’t:

It’s a fourth independent pair of eyes that’s found the same thing as all the others

But there are also some profound differences. UR says that the Elites are mostly gone, that everything’s ruled by the Gentry nowadays, and that the Gentry are allying with the criminal Underclass against Labor. MC mentions this same picture, but only as the false facade that the Elites are trying to get everyone else to believe in order to keep them divided.

I think the differences are real and political: MC comes from a liberal perspective, UR from a conservative one. MC wants to locate the source of the cancer in the (mostly plutocrat) Elites, cast the (mostly liberal) Gentry as wonderful people who can do no wrong, cast the (mostly conservative) Labor as deluded and paranoid, and cast the (liberal-aligned) Underclass in a sympathetic light. UR wants to locate the source of the cancer in the (mostly liberal) Brahmins, cast the (mostly conservative) Labor as decent salt-of-the-Earth types under threat from the elite, and cast the (liberal-aligned) Underclass in an unsympathetic light. (culture war)

And the political angle evokes one more system worth adding here: my own discussion of the Blue Tribe vs. the Red Tribe in I Can Tolerate Anything But The Outgroup. (2014-09-30) Alexander I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup

Some final scattered thoughts:

All those studies that analyze whether some variable or other affects income? They’d all be much more interesting if they analyzed the effect on class instead

“I Can Tolerate Anything But The Outgroup”‘s Grey Tribe sits uneasy within this system. It doesn’t seem to be a class. But it also seems distinctly different from ordinary Gentry norms

Maybe class is one factor among many that can create a different culture, but other factors can be stronger than class in some groups?

Donald Trump appeals to a lot of people because despite his immense wealth he practically glows with signs of being Labor class.

I think classes probably sort on important qualities and reinforce those qualities.