What Happened....

[BlueTrain]

Making generalizations can be tricky but I'll take my chances. But part of the problem here is that what is lower, middle, upper middle, and upper (and perhaps lower upper!) are simply classes almost arbitrarily defined by income, though not necessarily by wealth. But other classifications are rather more realistic but do not necessarily neatly correspond to income levels which can vary from place to place for the same work.

At the very top are those who don't actually work, not as we think of it. At one time it might have been called the leisure class or the idle rich but we don't say things like that anymore. Typically they would be higher management and owners of businesses. There is a professional class, not rigidly defined, that also generally has a high income. Two wage earners in a household tends to skew things a little, too. How much class mobility there might be is irrelevant here.

Then there is everyone else. Those at the bottom are those who perform menial tasks, work only part time or otherwise have very low income. There is also skilled labor and skilled clerical workers, some of whom in both groups are lower end management and semi-professional. I guess those are the middle class of people. At one time the middle class included the merchants and artisans but in the day of the corporation, which is now, those groups are disappearing.

I've thought about this for a while and I cannot make a good correlation between any of this and whether or not there is a dining room in the house. I have to attribute it to pure chance. In a small town, however, a couple of blocks on down the street can mean you're in a totally different sort of neighborhood. A neighborhood where everybody has a dining room!

I grew up in a mostly working class neighborhood. One of our neighbors, both the mother and the father, were school teachers, yet they lived in the smallest house on the block, although it was likely to have been the newest. Most houses in the neighborhood, as far as I was ever able to tell and I did not take notes, did not have a dining room. But at least two did. Ours was one of them. Yet we also had a large kitchen, or so it seemed to me at the time. In fact, most of the rooms in our house were quite large and apparently so large as to cause one of my uncles to say they were too big. But it was still an old and very plain house. There was a barn, a garage and two sheds behind the house, along with a very large garden.

We sometimes had a servant, too, but only because my mother was an invalid. My father worked two jobs to provide that for my mother. But the house was not arranged for a servant.

One house near where my wife grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, was built probably in the 1920s. It had a tiny kitchen, almost like a galley. But there were "back stairs" for the household help, which when I visited the house was history. The house did have a dining room.

 

[Benzadmiral]

That is a fair point. But Ross, a PHD took an apartment in the same apartment building that was really nice and well-beyond what a young PHD could afford. Joey and Chandler's apartment was more realistic for two young guys with jobs (although, Joey didn't always have work, but they made a point of showing that Chandler carried Joey on some months).

True. Though Ross's nicer apartment, later in the series, was directly across the street from Monica's -- it was at his window that he first spots Chandler and Monica being intimate, remember? Is that the one you mean? The much smaller place he had earlier, in the Rachel days, was, I thought, not in the same building at all. Though it's been a while since I've seen those early episodes.

 

[Fading Fast]

True. Though Ross's nicer apartment, later in the series, was directly across the street from Monica's -- it was at his window that he first spots Chandler and Monica being intimate, remember? Is that the one you mean? The much smaller place he had earlier, in the Rachel days, was, I thought, not in the same building at all. Though it's been a while since I've seen those early episodes.

I stand corrected - Ross' apt was across the street. But still - as I lived in the NY and was about his age when he took it - well past a PHD professor's salary at the time - especially in the Village. Not really a big deal, as you pointed out, they did explain the girl's apt which was well past what they could afford otherwise and, heck, this is just TV. But I lived in NYC at the time and my friends and I were a bit miffed by the unreality as we knew how silly it was.

 

[Paisley]

What's never mentioned is people (especially young adults) getting money from relatives, especially parents.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Making generalizations can be tricky but I'll take my chances. But part of the problem here is that what is lower, middle, upper middle, and upper (and perhaps lower upper!) are simply classes almost arbitrarily defined by income, though not necessarily by wealth. But other classifications are rather more realistic but do not necessarily neatly correspond to income levels which can vary from place to place for the same work.

That's a good point, which leads into my own view of the matter. Whenever I talk about "classes" here, or anywhere else, I'm not talking about income. This is where Americans get completely balled up in discussing social class, because they confuse it with how much money you have, when in reality social class has less to do with money than with the entire culture in which you were raised and in which you live.

In this sense, a "working class" person and a true "middle class" person actually have very little in common -- a working class person was raised with a different set of social and cultural expectations than a middle class person, and no matter how much money they end up having this basic cultural background won't change. There are many, many working-class Americans, especially in the skilled trades, who make more money than the average "middle class" person. But that doesn't change their class background or their class worldview. And a true "upper class" person can be dead broke and still be upper class -- because, again, it's a matter of the values, priorities, and attitudes you were raised with which mark you as a member of a particular class, not your bank account. And you can be filthy rich and still be profoundly "middle class" in the way you look at the world -- Mr. Trump is a prime example of this. No matter how much money he's got he will never, ever be accepted as a member of the true "upper class," because he just doesn't have the background required of an upper class person in America.

Paul Fussell wrote an excellent book in the '70s called "Class," exploring the real structure of social classes in America. While it's written in a tongue in cheek style, and reveals Fussell's own upper-middle-class-wishing-he-could-be-upper-but-knowing-he-never-will-be background, it's probably the best book ever written by an American on this subject.

(And then, aside from all this, there's the Marxist definition of class, whereby anyone who works for a wage as opposed to owning capital is a member of the working class, but we won't get into that here...)

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ I agree with most of Lizzie's post - we definitely confuse income and class and while they overlap, they are not the same. Like most of us, I have known some very wealthy people who are "blue collar" in their outlook, social customs, etc. and some no-longer-wealthy people who still identify and view the world as if they were "well-to-do."

I don't know much about Trump, but I thought his father was a very wealthy real-estate owner - not at Trump's present level, but wealthy. That said, he might have had a very "middle class" outlook and Trump clearly has embraced something other than a "to-the-manner-born" view and posture. Just thoughts - this is not an argument.

I've seen his daughter on TV discussing her family's business - prior to Trump's presidential run - and have been impressed with her calm, thoughtful, not bombastic manner - but also not put-on or elitist. This, too, is just an observation.

Last thought, according to Marx, for all but the last five years of my thirty years on Wall Street I was part of his proletariat because I always worked for a wage. Then, five years ago, when I started working for myself and using my own capital, I became a "capitalist." What's funny is I had more security - compensation and benefits - as a wage slave and less risk as my own money wasn't tied up in the business when I was a proletariat. This being a capitalist isn't all it's cracked up to be as I have my "capital" at risk and no backstop (companies can weather tough times much better than my little "capitalist" operation can) of a large company providing me a wage or benefits.

 

[Paisley]

I remember hearing on a talk show many years ago that the Trumps were not in the Social Register. There was also an article in The Atlantic a few months ago on the middle class living paycheck to paycheck, and land-rich, cash-poor aristocracy comes to mind, too.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Trump's personal ostentatiousness would be -- and is -- considered extremely vulgar by the true American upper class, which practices a very quiet, dignified, pratically invisible way of life. I know many actual upper class people -- this area is a traditional summer spot for them going back to the 19th Century -- and to an individual they absolutely blanch at that sort of overt display of personal wealth. "It just isn't done." It's even considered gauche and inappropriate to compliment an upper class person on their clothing or their house or whatever. For such ones, the quality of such things is *assumed* as a matter of course, and is never something worth commenting about. Offering such a compliment to an upper class person immediately marks you as not one of them. Middle class folk, on the other hand, thrive on the sense of personal reinforcement they receive from such compliments, and are taught that it's proper and courteous to express thanks when one is thus complmented.

Although Paul Fussell doesn't discuss Trump himself in his book -- it just predated Trump's arrival on the national stage -- I have no doubt that if he were writing today he'd correctly peg The Donald as the son of a working-class hustler who got lucky in real estate. His behavior over the years fits the classic class stereotype of such a person who, in the view of the Upper Class, is "rich beyond his station," and will therefore never actually be one of them.

In my generation the single strongest line of division between the working class and the middle class was college. It was *assumed* from birth as a matter of course that a true middle class child would go on to college. It was never taken for granted among the working class -- it might be hoped for, or aspired to, but it was never simply assumed, and if it didn't happen it certainly wasn't a stigma. It was a normal thing to go to work full time right out of high school to put the buck on the table, because that's what most people like you did.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Last thought, according to Marx, for all but the last five years of my thirty years on Wall Street I was part of his proletariat because I always worked for a wage. Then, five years ago, when I started working for myself and using my own capital, I became a "capitalist." What's funny is I had more security - compensation and benefits - as a wage slave and less risk as my own money wasn't tied up in the business when I was a proletariat. This being a capitalist isn't all it's cracked up to be as I have my "capital" at risk and no backstop (companies can weather tough times much better than my little "capitalist" operation can) of a large company providing me a wage or benefits.

Of course, the thing with Marx is that he was writing about conditions as they existed in the early part of the industrial revolution, not as they exist today. He never intended his theories to be taken as scripture by his followers like medeival theologians debating about angels dancing on the head of a pin, just as Smith never intended his followers to quake before the Invisible Hand like those same theologians might have pondered the Holy Ghost. Even Marx himself evolved his views to keep up with unfolding events over the course of his lifetime, which is as it should be. As soon as anyone starts assuming any piece of theory or writing from the eighteenth or nineteenth century was handed down on stone tablets never to be changed or evolved, they're heading down the road to inflexible, dangerous fundamentalism.

What I think Marx got right was the foundation of his theory -- that all wealth ulitimately derives from the sale of labor power, either physical or intellectual, by the proletariat to the capital class, either directly thru production accomplished by wage workers, or indirectly by the purchase of goods and services by that proletariat using wages received in exchange for their labor power. That framework remains correct, in my view, however the modern system evolves or however we specifically describe the classes.

 

[Fading Fast]

Of course, the thing with Marx is that he was writing about conditions as they existed in the early part of the industrial revolution, not as they exist today. He never intended his theories to be taken as scripture by his followers like medeival theologians debating about angels dancing on the head of a pin, just as Smith never intended his followers to quake before the Invisible Hand like those same theologians might have pondered the Holy Ghost. Even Marx himself evolved his views to keep up with unfolding events over the course of his lifetime, which is as it should be. As soon as anyone starts assuming any piece of theory or writing from the eighteenth or nineteenth century was handed down on stone tablets never to be changed or evolved, they're heading down the road to inflexible, dangerous fundamentalism.

What I think Marx got right was the foundation of his theory -- that all wealth ulitimately derives from the sale of labor power, either physical or intellectual, by the proletariat to the capital class, either directly thru production accomplished by wage workers, or indirectly by the purchase of goods and services by that proletariat using wages received in exchange for their labor power. That framework remains correct, in my view, however the modern system evolves or however we specifically describe the classes.

I hope you know my post was meant lightheartedly as I agree with your first paragraph above - it is absolutely unfair to take any 100+ year old words out of their context and literally as a way to belittle them. I was sincerely just having some fun since your brought Marx up, but respect how, in your response to me, you brought in Smith as well to make your point - which, as noted, I agree with.

However, as to your second paragraph, I think wealth is created by human ingenuity creating better, smarter, more efficient ways to produce goods and services. But If I go any further, I'm straying way into politics. So I'll leave it there with a sincere apology if my first post didn't come across in the spirit intended.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Oh, no prob at all -- it just seemed like a point worth making. Fundamentalist Marxists are the worst enemies Marxism has, and I imagine that to be true of any philosophy.

 

[Fading Fast]

...In my generation the single strongest line of division between the working class and the middle class was college. It was *assumed* from birth as a matter of course that a true middle class child would go on to college. It was never taken for granted among the working class -- it might be hoped for, or aspired to, but it was never simply assumed, and if it didn't happen it certainly wasn't a stigma. It was a normal thing to go to work full time right out of high school to put the buck on the table, because that's what most people like you did.

It all seems very confusing to me as there were working class families in my neighborhood that raised their kids with one goal - go to college. The there were middle class families that were okay with their kids not going to college.

I lived a block away and from one and their kid was my friend. His college educated parents (who were both teachers) encouraged him to be "whatever he was passionate about" which was photography. So after high school, he tried his hand at that - didn't do well (he told me) with the pressure and responsibility of having to make sure his pictures came out (if hired for an event) and decided instead to take job driving a truck.

When I look around (figuratively) at my neighborhood growing up and the kids I knew in surrounding neighborhoods, the classes and views of those classes as you outlined them absolutely existed, but so did many alternative views. It was much more of a mishmash.

 

[Fading Fast]

Oh, no prob at all -- it just seemed like a point worth making. Fundamentalist Marxists are the worst enemies Marxism has, and I imagine that to be true of any philosophy.

Nothing killed Ayn Rand's movement more in the '60s than the purists who spent more time excommunicating any one "guilty" of a minor philosophical infraction than expanding the base of followers. Same thing, I believe, with the librarian movement today which can spend incredible amounts of time arguing about the last iota of intellectual purity.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think a lot of class chaos arose in the US with the rise of suburbia after the war, especially in areas where you had a lot of working-class ex-GI families moving into what they imagined to be a middle-class environment. For Joe and Sally Dinnerpail from Bensonhurst, who'd grown up in dingy old rental flats before the war, they imagined "home ownership" to be the badge of the middle class -- and their neighbors, Louie and Alice Punchpress from Canarsie and Willie and Agnes Pickleworks from Williamsburg, and all the rest of them, were assuming the same thing, and they ended up overcompensating in trying to bring up their kids the way they thought middle-class people ought to be. The result was a sort of strained hybrid of the working and middle classes, which tended to get looked down upon as strivers and pretenders by the prewar middle class from Westchester.

I didn't come from a neighborhood like that -- there were no neighbors on our block worth impressing because everybody'd known everybody going back three or four generations. (I was the first member of my family since the turn of the century to leave that town, and I only did so because I couldn't find a job in the 25-percent-unemployment-rate environment of the early eighties.)

 

[Fading Fast]

Truly not picking on you words - and plenty of neighbors where I grew up were into impressing, and we all knew who they were - but many who wanted their kids to go to college, IMHO, weren't trying to impress but sincerely believed they were trying to give their kids the best possible future. We had the "look at our new car" neighbors and also the "I hope John is smart enough and we can scrape enough money together to get him to a community college" neighbors.

I think your neighborhood was much more homogenous than my mishmash.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing in our neighborhood was that we didn't really believe there was an ahead to get to. We were more concerned with surviving today than in dreaming about tomorrow, which was a pretty characteristic view of the much-beaten-up 20th Century New England working class. Aspirationalism was primarily a middle-class thing.

This was even more true in the schools. Kids from middle-class families were given the encouragement and the inspiration to aspire. Kids from working-class families were barely given the time of day, because they were all going to wind up on the docks, in the mills, or in the canneries anyway.

 

[Fading Fast]

The thing in our neighborhood was that we didn't really believe there was an ahead to get to. We were more concerned with surviving today than in dreaming about tomorrow, which was a pretty characteristic view of the much-beaten-up 20th Century New England working class. Aspirationalism was primarily a middle-class thing.

The working class - bus drivers, maids, etc. (people I knew) - where I grew up - at least some of them - were aspirational for their children. It sounds as if New England, where you were, was much more depressed than Central NJ (which was hardly thriving in the '70s, but sounds as if it was in better economic shape than NE).

 

[LizzieMaine]

New England was a dying economy in the 70s and 80s. Our manufacturing base was shot by the shoe and textile companies moving to the South or to China, whichever would work cheaper, and by the canneries closing in the wake of the collapse of the fishing industry due to overfishing. Our big industry locally was poultry, which was devastated in the late '70s by the packers moving to cheap Southern labor. 25 percent local unemployment was a very real thing here -- I remember riding my bicycle, literally, door to door looking for jobs for the entire summer after my graduation, and when I landed a minimum wage job sorting deposit bottles in the back of a grocery store I celebrated for a week. After I lost that job for "thinking too much" I joined CETA -- the Carter-era equivalent of the WPA -- and painted signs in the courthouse basement with no ventilation. It was a lousy job, but with all the paint fumes I didn't feel too discouraged.

I ended up saving $100 to buy a one-way Greyhound ticket to California where a friend from my block was living. We roomed together in a one-room studio for $425 a month and I ended up with a minimum wage job in a meat-processing plant, which was tolerable only because I got a free kielbasa every payday. I went broke after six months, though, and went back home, where I finally got yet another minimum wage job in radio -- which lasted two years until the station went broke and I ended up in the t-shirt factory for fifty cents above minimum. Yeah, baby, feel the '80s prosperity.

(There was one industry that thrived here in the '80s, though. Cocaine was everywhere, and we had major gangland-type shootings over drug deals all the time. But I just couldn't see myself in that line of work.)

 

[Benproof]

I like that. People had better origami skills back then.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The guy in the undershirt is just so unselfconsciously *happy.* You hardly ever see that anymore.