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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
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]
I'm the PP you are responding to, but I'm clipping my response to keep this post from being too long.

I don't really agree that additional dimensions are needed. I'm not sure if you read the original Church post or one of the reaction posts, but I think his rungs cover some of the nuances you are discussing pretty well. The 3/4 rungs are very much the "striver" rungs, where drive plays a big role. It makes sense, because these are typically the rungs you would get on when transitioning ladders. It makes sense that people on the higher rungs would view their class status more through a cultural/hereditary lens, because they were likely born on the ladder that they are on. I think in Church's framework, values are primarily what defines each class ladder...so that is the primary mechanism for separating the ladders: Labor values work above all, Gentry values education/intellectualism above all, and Elite values connections above all. Because the Elite comprise both socialites and corporate overlords, it's not surprising that both Gentry and Labor feel affinity to them. Corporate CEOs, even the generational owners of private corporations, *do* work very hard. It's just that hard work isn't the *only* thing that defines their success. Labor ladder people, though, can relate to their hard work. Gentry can relate to the fact that most of the Elite are also well-educated and in modern society money buys you a lot of influence.

OT of this post, I am still stuck on how difficult it is to place physicians in this framework. I think it's because MDs are a very different sort of professional than bankers or lawyers. If bankers and lawyers so choose, they can limit their work to only interacting with Elites, thereby getting access to the sphere of connections. MDs can't do this. [u]Their profession requires them to interact with a much larger set of people which is why it's much more difficult for an MD to break into the Elite sphere solely through their professional efforts[/u].[/quote]

Not necessarily.  MDs have started doing this by going into practices that don't accept any insurance at all, where everything is pay for service.  Also concierge medicine and specialties like upper end plastics.[/quote]

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