Represents the upper class of the United States, the very wealthy, those in the very top level of corporate America. These families constitute about 0.1% of all families in the United States. Every April Fortune Magazine publishes a list of the wealthiest families in America. Some are quite old (the DuPonts, the Rockefellers, the Hunts), others are very new (Bill Gates, Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson -- mostly media stars). If you do not know who these families are, go to the library and find a copy of Fortune and read up on them. You may also want to visit the Forbes Magazine web site and see a comparative list of America's all-time wealthiest people. You may be surprised at how many have branches in Colorado, then again, maybe not.
The children are products of private secondary schools, selective ivy league or private colleges and universities (including Stanford Univeristy). In these settings the novice members of the upper class learn how to 'govern,' to run large economic enterprises and how to represent the interests of their class in the board and governing rooms of America.
Through membership in exclusive social clubs, and listings in the social register (e.g., the Denver Club in Denver, similar clubs in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Philadelphia) the families maintain links among one another. According to E. Digby Baltzell they can discuss their business and social interests in these contexts without fear of it getting into the hands of the public.
Many of these families do not become directly involved in politics (although some do, the Rockefeller family is notable in this respect -- governors of New York, Virginia and Arkansas). This does not mean that they are not involved in the politics at the local or national level. It was Avirell Harriman's widow that decided Bill Clinton would make a good president of the United States. She held a number of social gatherings to which the Clinton's were invited so they could meet the people with the money needed to support a run for the presidency. She also convinced these fellow members of the elite that Bill Clinton would be the kind of president that would do the things they felt necessary to save the country. Ronald Reagan was the product of similar activites as was Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.
In summary, the upper class is an exclusive group that tends to marry and socialize entirely within its own groups. They occupy positions of power in the board rooms of American corporations and busines and to be actively involved directly or indirectly in politics.
This upper middle class consists of lawyers, physicians, other top management of large and medium corporations, top level engineers, some college university professors and others with this type of education and position in the economic structure of the society.
The class is characterized by 'doing.' The have attended public schools, relatively exclusive colleges and Universities, prestigious public Universities.
In general this class carries out the mandates of the upper class or supports them in a variety of ways -- educating their children for example.
These are the 'white collar' lower middle management type people, the solid middle class. Occupations tend to be those of teacher, lower level management and so forth. Education is often limited to state colleges and universities, possibly community colleges.
The members of this class do most of the work of the society, manage much of the low level sectors of the organizations. They are often quite conservative and very active in their religious communities. Today this group is a mixed bag, often including the small business owner and family farmer. Individuals in these last two groupings often feel threatened by the changes in the society and by large corporations, government and business.
The working class, what is often seen as the backbone of America. This class consists of people who build the goods that we all consume (if they are indeed made in America!). These are the truck drivers who deliver the goods to us, the policeman who maintain order, firefighters who keep it cool. This class also includes those who have very minimal skills.
It used to be that one could make a good living as a member of this class, often with very little formal education (in the 1940s and 1950s some high school was all that was needed). The cities of the upper Ohio Valley in Ohio, the manufacturing communities of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana are filled with these families. The towns of Virginia and Pennsylvania also have their share of these families (steel workers and coal miners). As more and more manufacturing is leaving the United States this class is under severe pressure. It is increasingly difficult for their children to follow in their parents footsteps. It is increasingly difficult for individuals with less than a high school education to find well-paying jobs and to be able to support the life styles that their parents found very familiar and comfortable.
This is often seen as an underclass, a group that is perpetually underprivileged, often not even managing to get by. There is a very fine line between this group of people and the ones in the two 'classes' above. Any kind of financial downturn, unemployment or major medical crisis will put many people in the above two groups into this one.
The members of this class are characterized as having little formal education and few if any marketable skills. Their existence is from hand to mouth, day-to-day. For many there are also health problems (mental and physical). Marriage comes early and with it parenthood. Poverty or near poverty is a standard condition of life for the members of this class (however, do keep in mind that poverty is relative to the wealth of the society).
The difficulties faced by this class is such that attempts to deal with any single feature of their lives is doomed to failure. For example, it is often argued that all that is needed for this class to join the main stream is a steady job. However, that is predicated on a better education. Achievement of either is often hindered by severe health problems that keep them from focusing on study or from working steadily as is expected by the middle and upper classes.
Location in the 'class' structure establishes the life time opportunities of the individual. This includes things like access to education, to the structure for advancement in the work world and so on.
Educational structure as we will see in a future topic serves as an opportunity structure in the U.S. It is through education that we see ourselves as being able to advance to better social position. This is only partially true as will be demonstrated when we discuss education.
However, education does provide skills and knowledge that are necessary for success in the occupational world and therefore to enhancing or maintaining one's social standing in the community. The American system of education is predicated on exactly this idea.
Status attainment is the ability of any individual to achieve standing or enhance status in the community. Status attainment is engrained in our mythology and in our value system. America is always viewed as a land of opportunity, that if one works hard enough one can be whatever s/he chooses to be. This myth is celebrated in a series of novels that were often recommended to young men at the turn of the Century -- the Horatio Alger stories. In these stories a poor boy worked as a newsboy, selling newspapers on the street corner or as a shoeshine boy on the street. Through hard work and a lot of luck, the boy always worked his way upward through the system to be editor and publisher of the newspaper or owner of a shoe manufacturing business. We still believe in this, and many people feel that the way to success is to find some way to be self employed and to reinvest the money earned so that we too can become a real estate tycoon or captain of industry.
We can achieve status in the U.S. and many factors play into this effort. Educational achievement is clearly a factor, father's occupation influences success in status attainment (i.e., status gained, compared to that of your parents) .
In the United States, we believe in mobility, in being able to improve our social and economic position relative that of our parents. If we work hard enough, we can go from janitor's sone to President of the United States or better yet to President of ITT.
Fortunately our history has provided many possibilities for this kind of success. Many of our millionnaires made their fortunes in exactly this manner, the most recent member of this club is Bill Gates, founder and owner of Microsoft Corporation -- millionnaire by the time he was 30.
As a new, young country with lots open space and untapped resources this kind of attainment was possible in many fields. However, as we have matured and the frontier has closed these kinds of opportunities seem to be in shorter supply or to be found in entirely different places. Success may now be more a matter of knowledge and salesmanship than a matter of hard work in industry.
Movement up or down in the social hierarchy. We describe generational mobility ( what I achieve in my life time) and intergenerational ( what I achieve compared to my family of origin). We also include long distance mobility, moving as indicated above from the very bottom to the very top, or at least near to it.
Mobility has two principal sources:
This occurs when positions at the top (and bottom) of the hierarchy are not filled from the ranks of those at these levels. It includes downward mobility of those at the high ranks and upward of those at the low ranks. The key to keep in mind about this kind of mobility is that the relative proportions at the top and bottom remains pretty much the same through time
Structural mobility results from significant changes in the structure of the society. In this case, it can arise from a shift from agriculture to manufacturing, or in our time from manufacturing to information. The positional changes resulting from structural mobility will generally mean an overall shift in the pattern of inequality in the society. Thus the shift from manufacturing to an informational society has meant the elimination of skilled working class jobs, and a replacement of those with highely skilled white collar, middle class jobs. (some argue that the shift is to service occupations and in a net decrease in status of a bulk of the population)
present the information that the system of inequality is important in contemporary society, the manner in which it 'determines' opportunity, what one does, what one contributes, how one will live, the kind of success one can expect in life.
Copyright © 1996, 1997 by Richard H. Anderson, the Department of Sociology and the University of Colorado at Denver.
This page last revised: January 12, 1999. Please contact Richard H. Anderson (randerso@carbon.cudenver.edu) if you experience any problems or have comments about these pages.