teacherken recently wrote a diary about an article written by U.C. Berkeley professor of sociology, Arlie Hochschild, Bush’s Empathy Squeezeon why lower class people sometimes vote against their economic interests by voting Republican.
Embedded in this article is a great frame for the ridiculously-super-duper-ultra-wealthy: The Overclass.
We refer to the very poor as underclass, don’t we? So it makes sense to call the top 1% the overclass. I really like this frame because it raises the idea that there really is such a thing as a person with too much wealth. These people with more wealth than God are outside the class system, in some category above even the ultra-wealthy. This concentration of wealth and the resulting concentration of power is anathema to a working democracy. The effective result is an aristocracy. This is one of the reasons we have the inheritance tax: to prevent huge concentrations of wealth in the hands of just a few families.
Not only does a concentration of wealth undermine democracy, it also undermines the free market itself. The overclass historically do all they can to maintain their position. This means market manipulation and unfair business practices. A truly free market requires competition, but how do you compete with someone who has unlimited resources? This is why we have anti-trust laws, to keep competition in the market.
The Republican agenda is the creation of an overclass, an aristocracy. They are, therefore, both anti-democracy and anti-free market.
So lets start using this frame as much as possible. THE OVERCLASS.
So – decided the two-faced kitty was too freaky, afterall?
I think you run into problems when you start talking about class in political debates. We have this myth of the classless society which, baseless though it may be, has a very strong hold on American minds. If you start talking about the Overclass, you push the buttons of 1)people who are part of that class, 2)people who are middle-class and aren’t hyper-aware of the class system (these people are vulnerable to the ‘class warfare’ meme) and 3)people who are in the ‘underclass’ and don’t like to think of themselves that way. Teacherken spoke directly to this last one in his diary – there’s a reason people vote for policies that undermine their social class: they don’t feel that they are a permanent member of that class.
I’m not saying don’t go after the bastards – just maybe think of a different way to put it.
Yeah… found out the kitty died a day or two ago, so I pulled the diary.
I understand their are good reasons to stay away from class as a frame, but the bottom line is that class does exist. The author of the article does use the term, and for a very good reason. Yes, upward mobility exists, but the point of the idea of “overclass” is that those people do not belong within the same system that you and I do. They are able to use and abuse their status to protect themselves and keep others from attaining their status. As Randi Rhodes puts it: they are able to purchase more democracy than you or me.
By not talking about class, we fall into a trap set by the right. They don’t want us talking about class; they want it a non-issue and have been successful at it so far. The right also says that Democrats are racist because we talk about race so much. Do we ignore race now and hope that will make race issues disappear? No. I think we should talk about class, we must talk about class. You may want to use a different term, but we can’t ignore the idea of class.
John Edwards used the “Two Americas” frame to point out that there is an overclass, and I think it resonated with many people. Edwards was trying to show that the wealthy use their wealth in an immoral way, to keep the lower classes down and themselves up. I think “overclass” can also be used to suggest the same thing.
I also like the term “working class” rather than lower or middle class. Working class includes everyone from the poorest burger-flipper, to the big-time trial lawyer — anyone who gets a paycheck; very inclusive.
Ok, I think we’re on the same page more or less. I agree with you on the need to raise awareness about class issues – encouraging the popular idea of a classless society was a stroke of genius on the part of the ‘overclass’. I think I’ve mentioned this before around here, but one thing really jumped out at me when reading “Hard Times” by Studs Terkel (an oral history of the depression): The people he talked to who stood in bread lines and watched their lives crumble around them almost uniformly blamed themselves for their situation. The idea that, in America, you rise and fall on your own merit is so strong that a man can stand in line with thousand of other men, all decimated by an economic collapse, and believe his poverty is his own fault.
That said, there has always been a streak of populism in our country, and it’s something Democrats should tap into. I just think it will be an uphill battle.
That is a telling peek at the American psyche that people blamed themselves for their poverty during the depression.
Of course, today we live in a society where everyone plays the victim, so times have changed a bit since then.
In the end, I think we do agree. We just need a new way to talk about it, which is what I was trying to do here. Maybe you are right that anything with the word “class” in it wont sit well with most Americans, and might open us up to attacks as socialists and communists, and an outcry of class warfare.
Still, the term overclass really struck a chord for me and may be useful in some circumstances.
This isn’t at all helpful, I just think it’s funny:
Your comment reminded me of a story my dad tells about his brother (who died when I was a baby). Uncle Steve was at college at Indiana University in the 60’s and was a pretty radical guy (in that 60’s political kind of way). At this point, university housing was cheaper than renting a place in town, and there wasn’t enough of it to go around. As a result, people who couldn’t get a spot in the dorms would rent an apartment and wait for something to open up on campus. Well, Steve found out that the university wouldn’t let students who had signed leases break them to move into the dorms and he was furious. He came home and ranted for a while about the university taking advantage of students, etc. Eventually, my great-uncle Stanley broke in to say, “Ah ha! A fascist plot between the capitalist landlords and the administrative overlords!” Steve sensed that he was being mocked and piped down.
It’s become a bit of family lore, and your ‘overclass’ idea brought it to mind. 🙂
If we can use the term middle class I see no reason why we can’t adopt the term ‘Overclass’. I like the idea myself as it is one of those framing devices that the right has employed so well. It is simple and to the point, not needing a lot of explanations.
It also might be that as one of the underclass I know good and well that everyone knows about and talks about class divisions. It seems that middle class and up don’t want to talk about class issues-I guess as a way of ignoring the whole issue or blaming the underclass for their problems.
With the economy in such sad shape, with no jobs to be had or found people are beginning to realize that it isn’t their fault they can’t find jobs, support family. Because this is now hitting middle class instead of just the lower classes so it is becoming more of an issue. Middle class people are realizing it isn’t always the fault of the worker but of policies and programs of leaders who are in charge-and of course how big business screws everyone…the ‘Overclass’.
As a side note the term ‘overclass’ to me has a bit of reverse snob appeal as it can also mean that just because someone is super rich does not mean they have any class but are rather overclassed-like nouveau riche. If that made any sense and probably not that nice on my part.
I think the middle and upper class don’t talk about class because they think the economy is a zero-sum game. The poor should be able to get richer without making the wealthy poorer, but that isn’t the way the GOP runs things and that isn’t what most people believe.
Also, surveys show that more people think they are middle class when they are really poor. I grew up in a family of 16 children. We received food stamps and free lunches at school. We shopped at GoodWill. I lived in hand-me-downs my entire childhood. Yet we considered ourselves middle class. Had my parents only had 2.5 kids, they would have been middle or upper-middle class, but with 16 kids, we were poor.
That’s why I like “working class.” It is a wide umbrella without the negative connotation.
You’re right about using working class and I should have used that-although using underclass for myself is simply because I can’t work and am on permanent disability. And SSD pretty much automatically makes you to the underclass, very underclass.