Social Class in a Classless Society?

I'm always one who finds the differences in the social classes in America the most defining and dividing aspects of its society. Travelling back and forth between the social classes is very fluid in America -- unlike anywhere else on the planet, in the history of the planet.

So whenever I come across material (articles, interviews, concepts in books) that detail what's going with America's social class and the way Americans contemplate such a heady, yet rarely talked about subject, it gets me jazzed up.

There is a socio-economist name Fussell, who is a "determinist", which means that he considered it relatively difficult for anyone to achieve a significant move in social (I'm a real, live case that would refute that stance, but there are exceptions to every rule). The curious thing about Fussell's determinist stance, is that America's social ethos is built on the fact that we CAN move from social class to social class. Although, you could argue that just because you made or lost a lot of money doesn't mean you've escaped the social codes of the social class you lived for most of your childhood and early adult life.

Fussell also, smartly, claimed that most Americans exhibit some degree of class anxiety or insecurity. Pointed out in the 1960s song by the R&B group The Temptations, "Don't Let The Joneses Get You Down."

Below is a breakdown of the various social classes, as defined by Fussell and others of his type.

Top out-of-sight: the "Old Money" wealthy who avoid public exposure (in part, due to experiences during the 1930s, when it was not to one's advantage to be wealthy). [True be told, I don't know enough about the 1930s to know what happened to wealthy people who didn't lose their money, but I'd like to know what their so-called "plight" was.

Upper Class: a group of those who are not only wealthy, but usually born into the wealth, and who espouse a different set of values than wealthy middle-class people or "proles". [Proles, as in proletariats, people who have to work for a living, and usually under someone else's fucking watchful eye.]

Upper-Middle Class: much better off than the majority, this class still lives primarily off earned income derived from professional status requiring expensive education: doctors, attorneys, upper-middle management, and so forth. Dentists and accountants are somewhat more problematic. This class is characterized by intense interest in higher education, and is generally the target audience of elitist, yet mainstream publications such as The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and so forth.

Middle Class: most "white collar" workers, including many of the self-employed, and a group most afflicted with status anxiety and confusion, envying the refinement of the upper-middle class and the leisure of the uppers.

High Prole: skilled, often wealthy manufacturing or service workers, who may out earn middle and even upper-middle class people but maintain a distinctively "lowbrow" culture.[Now this, this is fascinating, and we ALL know people who fit this bill. People who eschew any sense of upward class mobility -- even though they have the money -- because it would cause them to have to behave in a way that they have seen to be more disgusting to them?]

Mid Prole: an intermediate level of often poor workers, but with stable employment and relative security.

Low Prole: the working poor, with difficulty finding steady employment.[Guess who fits in here? Me! That's right damn it all to hell. What ever I do in what I'm passionate about, continues to keep me in the most fucked up of economic circumstances...]

Destitute: the homeless underclass. [What's really fucked up is that currently, this is where I am. I don't have a job, the place I'm staying in is REALLY fucked up because it's not my house and the owner has these dogs that get high priority on the living conditions.]

Bottom out-of-sight: those incarcerated in prisons, or otherwise outside the purview of sociology; like top-out-of-sights, they fall so low in society as to become effectively invisible.

So you can see there is more to the social dynamics of America than super rich, upper, middle and lower class -- each group has it's own traits that cultivate the socializing behavior of those who are in the group. What's interesting about the social codes of each group is how difficult it is to shed the codes of your previous class when you move, and how difficult it is to pick the codes of the new class. Also, it is a lot easier to degrade yourself as you fall down the social ordering. Whereas, you might never be accepted in the class that you climb to, particularly when it comes to the serious moneyed classes.

Oddly, the denizens of the uber-rich don't have the same kind of respect for someone who makes the huge paydays in their life time, whereas these muthafuckas got their immense wealth, usually, from some poor son of a bitch who made a look of fucking money in their 30s thru 50s, and then had a bunch of kids, grandkids and great grandids who just suckle of the sloppy old tit of the man who came from little in the first place.

In America, you become part of the ruling class, the so-called royal class, by maintain obscene wealth for probably two or more generations. Isn't that funny?