America's Nine Classes: The New Class Hierarchy

Of Two Minds ^ | April 29, 2014 | Charles Smith

[Mike Darancette]

There are many ways to slice and dice America's power/wealth hierarchy. The conventional class structure is divided along the lines of income, i.e. the wealthy, upper middle class, middle class, lower middle class and the poor.

I've suggested that a more useful scheme is to view America through the lens not just of income but of political power and state dependency, as a Three-and-a-Half Class Society (October 22, 2012):

[ClearCase_guy]

I will end this examination of the Nine Classes of America with this question: which class is having more fun?

Definitely not the Middle Class.

[GeronL]

Not the ones paying for Ferris Bueller’s life off

[GeronL]

Which is having more fun????

Is that what the most important thing is in society??

[2ndDivisionVet]

[PGalt]

2 classes. Socialists (and their collectives). Americans.

[griswold3]

I’d add another ‘Class’ for government employees. The unelected officials that influence policies. The public servant can become master.

[virgil]

Some of these mobile creatives, may also be collecting govt assistance while working, too. They don’t always report their income.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for posting this.

After a quick read, the author appears to have done his research and states his findings clearly.

I would like to have seen more re the Oligarchs re description and their role in our economy.

[Grampa Dave]

“Some of these mobile creatives, may also be collecting govt assistance while working, too. They don’t always report their income.”

They were called hippies in the 1960-70’s. The ones, who were good at a craft like wood working, glass blowing and other art forms, often had shops in garages in the country.

We saw them migrate from Gay Frisco on a northern route through Sonoma County, Mendicino county, Humboldt county and up to the Oregon border and through out SW Oregon.

Our home has a good deal of their work, and we kept track a few until they just disappeared.

The newer migration seems to be to the Artsy colonies in New Mexico and Colorado.

The ones we kinda kept track of probably didn’t get into too much government hand outs with the exception of health care. When their own hippie healthcare failed, they would show up at free clinics or ers.

[Teacher317]

Several of his classes are for the government/overlord sector, actually.

[discostu]

That’s too many. I find the class structure is really divided into 3:
the people who complain they don’t have enough
the people who complain they have too much
the people who wish all the complainers would shut the hell up

[Billthedrill]

Yes, I think you could collapse the first four or so into a single general class. Smith differentiates by noting more or less actual participation in the act of governance but it isn't as clear-cut as all that. Such nominally non-political acts as siting a business are, in application, highly political decisions.

It is not, however, a matter of right- or left-wing paranoia to state that there is a defined ruling class in the United States that has all the Marxian hallmarks of a separate class: finite, self-selecting population whose actions are primarily in the interest of class preservation and solidarity across other class signifiers such as race, sex, and ethnicity. It subsumes the current standard-bearers within both political parties and its most earnest, even desperate effort, is to see that harbingers of change such as Palin, Cruz, et al, are kept out.

The difficulty is that such movers for change must, in order to work lawfully within the system, become part of it. That ruling class cares little for law itself except insofar as law is its principal instrument of control, or more precisely, violence under the cover of law. "Oligarchy" may have to be stretched a bit to define it but the broader term "aristocracy" certainly does.