Reply to The Social Class Ladders—Labor, Gentry, and Elite

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This thread has taken a, to me, unexpected direction. I think part of the issue is that it has both gotten personal and taken a bit more of a hostile tone than needed to discuss the issues at hand.

In general, I'm most interested in how people are responding to discussions of transitioning ladders. It's not surprising that this would hit a nerve and someone who is solidly in one ladder would view things differently than someone who has moved from one to the other.

I'm a bit more difficult to pin down, because my parents were well-educated immigrants when they moved here, but I think I am very solidly G2 with the potential (and parental aspirations) to move to G1 or E3/4. I suspect it's a very common tension, especially for children of immigrants. Do you value money more? Or do you value cultural respect and influence in a society where you were never truly accepted for your race but were accepted for your educational and professional attainment? I think my personal sensibilities lean toward G1 (though my ideal in some ways would be the freedom of E2), and my siblings are both much more E3/E4 types. They appreciate education and the arts, but they are very concerned with accumulating wealth in a way that I simply am not. Ironically, though, I may have the highest HHI of my siblings...but I don't enjoy my job and I'm starting to realize it's because it lacks some of the prestige/influence that I want.

For ladder jumpers, I do think there will always be a sense of not fitting in. Even if the jumper doesn't see it, the people who started off on the ladder they jumped to will. I think that's why the G3/G4 and E3/E4 rungs both are described so differently than the 1/2 rungs. IMHO, if you're a ladder jumper it's your kids and grandkids who are likely to fit in. Though Trump is not a great example of much because his celebrity makes him so unusual, in a sense you can think about his father as an L1 who was so successful he was able to leap onto the Elite ladder. Trump's sensibilities are split, because he was old enough to recall this transition. He aspires in some ways to be a well-respected G1, but he is much closer to being an E1 (though he hasn't held the status long enough to be truly accepted as such, and in some ways being POTUS makes him more of an E3).  His kids, though, are very obviously E2 with the only odd thing being they seem a bit more obviously interested in making money.

To me these class distinctions aren't perfect and leave some gaps, but from a high level they very much ring true. My MIL was probably solidly G2/G3 growing, and my FIL was much more G3. They are now G2's by any reasonable definition, but their sensibilities actually lean toward G3 or even L1. My SIL and BIL are both well-educated (graduate degrees) but in professions that don't earn much. SIL was talking about how maybe it would be better not to have their kids go to college and instead learn a trade like plumbing. Everything she said made sense logically, but I had a visceral reaction to it that I didn't understand. But now I do. I'm not saying my reaction is right or my reference frame is better. But I know I am solidly gentry based on the unquestioning manner in which I view education.

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Mutt PP here. Interesting points.  I think something I see missing in this discussion is the personal role of drive for success / power / control within whichever value system you align with, I.e. do you feel personally motivated to obtain influence in your sphere. So in the discussion provided it seems to be conflating class as defined by drive with class as defined by values with class as defined by heritage, which I think muddies things (or just oversimplifies things.) My guess is a better model would be multi-dimensional to capture those differences. It is interesting to see the disassociation of class and wealth, at least within the G segment. Interesting thought pieces to be had there for sure.[/quote]

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