This content was originally in Social class and moved here, upon a user's request. Mike Church 22:17, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Titles of nobility are not constitutionally banned? I thought they were. I'll check on that one. Mike Church 04:34, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am not a sociologist. But I think the article is kind of mixing the marxist concept of class and the weberian concept of class. To Karl Marx, there would be two (2) main classes in the United States:

The bourgeoisie (the upper class, mostly)
The workind class (all the others from upper-middle to lower)

If you don't own the means of production, even if you're wealthy and respected, you are in the proletariat, plain and simple. You are being exploited by selling your work force to an employer. The difference between the value of your contribution and your salary is the Surplus value.

I don't know how to call the classification used therein, but the analisys seems quite influenced by Marx. I guess a good structure would be..

Link to Social class + introduction
Presentation of the different classes as they are now
What mainstream American authors have to say
Marxist classes + analysis
Discussion of Marxist vs. upper/lower/middle. (and some alienation in there)

Céçaquiéça 04:59, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

1. The grouping of classes is quite arbitrary. In the US, "class" as it exists is a combination of income, wealth, age, and lifestyle. Would one who makes 60K USD a year but drives a BMW, lives in a large house and lives an otherwise extravagant lifestyle but is deeply in debt be considered upper-class? What about the person who drives a Chevy or Ford, lives in a 2 bedroom house, but makes 300K a year in a "blue-collar" paving business and has multimillions in assets? What about age? One is not expected to be wealthy by the age of 20, but at 65, it would be expected that you had invested a good amount for retirement, and the mean of wealth would be higher for a 65 year old than a 20 year old. It is much too simplistic to simply group people into classes by income, which is not the same as actual wealth, or profession, as we have already seen contradictions both in the original article and examples given here.

The grouping of classes depends on how you define the notion of social class, of course. This article presents one possible grouping, based on one way to determine social classes. You are welcome to add alternative groupings if you wish. And yes, I agree with you that it makes much more sense to group people into classes according to their total wealth rather than their income. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:00, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

2. The idea that the uppermost and lowermost tiers of "class" defined by income in the US are stagnant is bunk. The top tier is one of the most violatile of "classes" in the US, with fortunes being made and lost on a daily basis. The churn is quite appreciable. Also, the majority of the lowermost class do not stay there for more than five years, but instead migrate upwards, as they most likely existed there beforehand. The income tiers of those in the US is in constant flux, and is more of a circle than a straight line. Stating that "sociological barriers are almost impossible to cross" is more of a value judgment than objectivity.

The uppermost and lowermost social classes in the US are stagnant when compared to similar classes in other First World countries. The US has much less vertical social mobility than your average industrialized country. You are right that this does not necessarely hold true for classes defined by income, however, since income can change very often. It does hold true for classes defined by wealth, though. As for the fortunes being "made and lost on a daily basis", those are the exception rather than the rule. If one poor man out of a million manages to get a lucky break and become super-rich, that doesn't mean anything. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:00, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

3. The statement that the lower-class is "underinvsted" is another biased statement. Stating that the correleation between class and intelligence is "weak at best" is simply an attempt to premptively dismiss anyone who disagrees. In matter of fact, the bulk of evidence is in the opposite direction. Not that the correlation is 1, but those with an IQ of 120 or higher are nearly garuanteed to attend and complete college, thereby obtaining more lucrative positions. You cannot "invest" (ie create or invent) intelligence where it doesn't exist.

Of course you can - much of what we call "intelligence" is acquired through education. If Einstein had grown up on a deserted island, do you think he would have ever worked in the field of advanced physics? In addition, it is well known that IQ grows with age, at least until a person's mid-20's. Therefore, it may well be that rich children can get smarter precisely because their parents are rich and can afford to give them a good education. Intelligence might be influenced by wealth, rather than the other way around. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:00, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

4. The paragraph after this is self-evidently biased.

How?

5. The last paragraph perpetuates the myth that the upper-classes exclusively obtain their positions through illicit dealings and chicanery. Also, the relation between productive worth and compensation is misrepresented.

Myth? For your information, upper-class individuals typically earn hundreds of times more money than middle-class individuals doing the same work. And many upper-class individuals are so rich that they no longer need to work at all. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:00, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In sum, this entry is more of someone's support for class-warfare and Communistic fantasies than serious, objective research. While an entry on class in the US is possible, it must not be pure propaganda for any one side, it must be fact-based, it cannot draw upon itself for its own justifications, and it must represent all sides equally without drawing subjective conclusions.

MSTCrow 11:40, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

[sarcasm] Oh, I'm sorry Mr. McCarthy, I hadn't recognized you! [/sarcasm] But seriously, it is my duty to inform you that real Communistic definitions of social class are based on a person's relation to the means of production (i.e. does he/she earn money by working for an employer, or by being a business owner and employing other people?), NOT on income. This article doesn't even touch on communist definitions and analyses of social classes. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:00, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

2004?

The current title of this article is "Class in the United States, circa 2004". I believe that a more appropriate title would be "Class in the Contemporary United States", since 2004 is about to be retro. ~~Does anyone have the ability to rename this page?~~ EventHorizon 05:40, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It appears I actually have the ability to do that myself. A more appropriate question: Will anyone mind if I move this page to "Class in the Contemporary United States"? EventHorizon 06:36, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am going to be bold and change the name. Kingturtle 02:36, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC) ...oops. someone already did. Kingturtle 02:36, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

race? gender?

How can you talk about class in the U.S. without talking about race or gender? Please fix this. Kingturtle 02:34, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC) P.S.

See below. --Dpr 03:29, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate

There are two articles about this topic, this and Social structure of the United States. I think they should be merged in some way.

I agree. —Ashley Y 02:59, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

Upper class and networking

Okay, to whoever keeps taking out my edits about the uppeItalic text'Italic textr class and networking:

People of all social classes get and maintain position in society. It is therefore biased to state that the upper class maintains its position by networking rather than hard work. It is perfectly accept, from an NPOV, to say that some people maintain that the upper class maintains its position by networking, but this cannot be stated as though it is proven fact rather than the opinion of some people. Please leave my edits to this section alone. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

What you have been adding ("highly disputable") is POV and incendiary. 99% of Americans are not upper-class, and 60+% of them are aware of what's going on. To deny a reality that 59.4% of people are aware of is offensive.

Even if it were true that 59.4% shared your view (source, please), that would not evidence in and of itself that that view is true, and it would still be the case that that view is controversial. By your logic, if 59.4% of the American public believed that the working class is given over to idleness and drink, this article should treat that sentiment as though it were a proven fact. The argument that upper class people don't work hard, or don't have to work hard, is highly disputable.

The 60+% was an estimate. I ascribe to Generation Y an astuteness much higher than seen in the over-18 population (47%, in November. Bush's 57% approval rating shows that it has declined a bit.) However, perhaps that number is unrealistic, since even some unemployed people (Ohio going to Bush) seem not to understand what's going on.

Ah, the good old "What's the Matter with Kansas?" thesis--the people are too dumb, or too distracted by the "Right Wing Noise Machine" to protect their own interests. It amazes me that someone who has actually lived in Kansas (as I have) could write a book as stupid as this, which so completely misunderstands the values of middle America, in Kansas and elsewhere. Kansans vote Republican because for them, the rich man is someone they sit next to in church and admire for what he has achieved, not someone whom they wish to wrongfully deprive of his property rights.

So you mean to stereotype Kansans as religiously hypocritical? (And would you like a needle with that camel?) Now that I find offensive. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, I just understand (and accept) the actual values of Kansans, in sharp contrast with Bob Franks, whose attitude betrays an amazing ignorance of own home state. And if you want to discuss the supposed "hypocrisy" of conservative religious denominations (which actually don't dominate Kansas religious life to anything like the extent you think they do), by all measures conservative denominations contribute far more to charity than do the liberal ones that reduce religion to "social justice" (read: liberal politics).

And if you want to talk religious hypocrisy, let's talk about all the people in liberal denominations willing to sell their birthright of liberty for potage.

I'm not a Christian (I won't get into a discussion of my religious convictions) but I have a lot more respect for the conservative denominations because they understand that being religious is a complete way of life, not just a series of platitudes meant to prop up the Democratic Party platform. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Kansans vote Republican because they are homeowners to a much higher degree than people in, say, the Bronx, and know that a rise in the capital gains tax will hurt them as much as it will hurt Britney Spears (probably much more, since Ms. Spears's biggest asset is probably not her home). I fail to see how voting against my own economic and security interests by voting for the Democrats would be a sign of any particular intelligence. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Riiiiight. Except let's bring some facts up: for one, red states profit from the federal govt. Repubs seem to hate, blue states pay more to the feds than they get out. Also, the urban intelligentsia of the red states (since the distinction is at a much finer level than that of states) are mostly progressive (as in, say, St. Louis, Atlanta or Cleveland); it's people in the backwaters who subscribe to regressive politics. Bush's machismo is going to appeal to people who shoot scorpions and drink awful beer on the weekends (whether they live in "red" or "blue" states). EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Gee, what a surprise--people who live in areas where they are more likely to own their own home tend to favor policies that reduce their capital gains taxes. People in rural areas are more likely than people in large cities to be homeowners. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

59.4%, of course, equals that 60% times 99%.

Thank you. I too learned multiplication in school. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

...and slept through social studies. (\cheap shot) EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)\

No, I just thought for myself in social studies instead of blindly accepting the left-wing spin on social issues I was presented with. I, unlike you, was able to see through the overarching philosophical assumptions on which they were based. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Anyway, the point is that I'm presenting a fact that a few people may dispute, mostly with overt pro-overclass leanings and massive conflicts-of-interest. EventHorizon talk 00:29, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, what you are presenting is an assessment that, whether shared by many people or not, is far from objective. I would say that quite a few working-class people who believe otherwise have "massive conflicts-of-interest," but you don't seem to hold that against them. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Well, they're not editing here that I know of. You have some conflict of interest; I believe you when you say you're not upper class so I haven't placed where that conflict is, but your evident paternalist leanings indicate some interest, and you sure have a lot of free time. Are you a potted plant like those radio guys? EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I'm home sick today, which is the only reason I've been able to devote any time to this. I see that you spend an awful lot of time on here. I guess that mean's you're a wealthy person who engages in class treason.

I dislike reversions in general and will try to remove the POV additions while maintaining important content.

Furthermore, you object to the removal of your royalist propoganda, yet remove "Class in terms of relation to the labor market". But the fact is, relationship to the labor market is a big ingredient in what makes class in the first place. Therefore, it's just inappropriate to remove that material. EventHorizon talk 00:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I remove "Class in terms of relation to the labor market" because its claims are dubious opinions, not objective facts. It may be your belief that some classes are "undervalued" and others "overvalued," but such terms are by definition statements of opinion, based around one person's beliefs about what value certain work should have. I will continue to remove this section whenever I see it on this site. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

I also fail to see how anything I have added is "royalist propaganda". Royalist means "of or pertaining to a monarchy". I have not advocated instating a monarchy in the United States and have only argued that it is not inherently unjust for some people to have more money than others and that an article purporting to be from a netural point of view shouldn't repeat stereotypes about the upper class while saying nothing about stereotypes about other classes. This article does not contend, for instance, that the middle class is philistine, hypocritically religious, and overconcerned with artificial standards of propriety (all charges levelled at the middle class), nor does it contend that the working class is given to idleness, dissipation, and drink. If you want this article to discuss stereotypes that members of various classes have of each other, by all means, be my guest. But to assert that "hard work is optional for members of the upper class" as though it were proven, agreed-upon fact is to give a patina of credibilty to a stereotype. Upper class people I have known work as hard at maintaining their wealth as many people in other classes work at attaining whatever they manage to acquire.

Undervalued and overvalued are mathematical facts in this context. "A toothbrush, to me, is worth $23". That's an opinion. "He is getting paid more than he would if his position were opened up to all qualified individuals." "She is getting paid less than the productive value of her work." Those are factual statements, unless you want to bark over "qualified" (which can be defined as "would perform the job duties expected of the position.")

It is your opinion that the job market for CEOs is not open to all qualified individuals. This is not an opinion I share.

All qualified individuals? My, what a strong claim. Trust me, there are more than a few thousand people in this country who could make good CEOs. Lots of people run things, duh. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Running a library or even a large charity does not necessarily give one the skills necessary to be a good CEO. If you have any actual evidence that CEO positions are not available to all who are qualified by intelligence, talent, background, and experience, be my guest. So far, you have merely repeated your opinion over and over like a broken record.

To characterize upper-class people as lazy would be a class stereotype and not accurate. To state that hard work is optional for them is to state a fact. (Unless their spending gets ahead of them but, hey, no sympathy.) Those among them who do real work (Paris Hilton does not work) do so out of love for their jobs and desire to accomplish. There is nothing wrong with this; such ambitions also motivate me. I am stating that it's simply not necessary for them to work in the way it is for us. EventHorizon talk 00:29, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Again, that's an opinion. Upper class people work just as hard maintaining their fortunes as the rest of us do acquiring one. And given how hard Paris Hilton has worked at promoting her own fame, I'm not sure your argument stands up even with respect to her.

Bull-fucking-shit. I know some of these people, trust-fund kids. You are either lying or completely unaware of the class of people whom you discuss. It's also not hard to maintain a fortune: you put it in various investments and get interest.

Which involves sound financial planning and, often, a lot of time spent determing which investments are sound. Not to mention dealing with a lot of tax complications the rest of us don't face. Go talk to someone who runs a hedge fund sometime and find out what it really takes to manage a fortune of $100M before you make these kinds of assertions. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

So fucking hard to watch numbers go up. Paris Hilton has been propped up by other people who realize that the name "Hilton" is attention-grabbing and is economically valuable. She, like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson and Hanson (which sounds unironically like "has-been") are all media creations, figureheads of bands of nose-picking fortune hunters in the culture (used loosely) industries. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ah, liberal reverse elitism rears its ugly head. The public doesn't share your taste, which are of course natural and right, so its taste must be manipulated by sinister forces.

I would be perfectly willing to accept a morally neutral view of people who obtain

enormous wealth, if the reverse were to apply and the poor were not to be castigated as work-shy layabouts.

And as for "sound financial planning" - if you are rich you PAY accountants etc for financial advice!

12:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

POV

This article is full of POV from both Left and Right. For instance:

Most individuals within the upper classes are over-valued, at least in strict mathematical terms when one compares their productive worth to their compensation. Often by more than an order of magnitude their salaries and compensation exceed what would be the market-value of their work were their privileged occupational positions opened to middle-class individuals, many of whom, by all accounts, would be competent to manage them.

Actually, if companies could find top talent for CEO positions, etc., for less, they'd hire from the middle class in a heartbeat.

Uh, they can. I know lots of people who have "top talent" and work for much much less than these CEOs get paid; professors making $45-75k, high-ranking government officials making $65-100k, et cetera. CEO pay is high because a closed group of people, the "corporate elite", uses the existing business structure to pay off people they know, making them ridiculously wealthy. It's a closed social system and has little to do with talent. That is a fact. EventHorizon talk 23:59, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Actually, no--That is an OPINION. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Nope. Fact that is demonstrable by comparing our current society with others, including ours at other times. CEO pay was lower (about 50 times average worker) in a time of social mobility (the 1950-60s, when we were world leaders in a lot of good things instead of the third world of the first world) when the U.S. was much closer to a meritocracy. Now that it's all (sorry to be cliche) who ya know, not what ya know... well, things are different. Incidentally, I think some truly visionary corporate leaders (or writers, artists) are worth ridiculous amounts of compensation that I'll probably never see. But CEO pay isn't high because these people are being paid for amazing leadership; they're being paid well for being already upper-class, born into those circles. Which is bizarre, stupid, and wasteful. EventHorizon talk 21:41, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's a nice fantasy. If you want to believe that CEOs are highly compensated because they belong to some kind of good-ol'-boy network, you are entitled to your opinion. However, you have provided nothing but a blind assertion that this is so. I have done my best to rewrite this article so that it contains something at least in the ballpark of a neutral point of view, but you have provided no concrete proof that the salary of CEOs is driven by anything other than market forces. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Prove that it's not. Share with us, in programmatic form, how a person with an IQ of, let's make it, 130+, at age 16, can become a CEO by 35. Provide the steps. At some point, there will be a social-networking factor, and that is where it becomes clear that I am right. EventHorizon talk 06:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why do you assume that a person has to make CEO by 35, if he's to make it at all? Yes, there are social networking factors involved, as there are in obtaining nearly any position. But why are you castigating the behavior of CEOs (and would-be CEOs) and not the behavior of people who obtain positions as, say, garage mechanics by the same means? It amazes me that people who think themselves free of every other sort of prejudice have no qualms about stereotyping those who simply have a little more money than they do.

In the article on academia, I would feel free to castigate academics who attain high positions by social networking. However, it's not appropriate for this page. Ditto for garage mechanics. If it were indicated to me that there were a high degree of corruption in the mechanics industry, I would feel free to write on the topic, in an article on mechanic. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

But you must concede that when an article such as this one implies that upper class people get ahead by social networks, while implying that people in other classes have to work for whatever they get, I call that a bias. I don't see why an article called "Class in the contemporary United States" should reflect what amounts to a crude stereotype some lower-class people have of the upper class. Saying that upper class people get ahead by exploiting social connections rather than through hard work is about as valid as saying that people remain in the lower class through idleness, dissipation, and drunkenness. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

That is exactly how the upper class works and it's common knowledge among sociologists.

That view may be believed by some (or even many) sociologists, but it is not a proven, indisputable fact. Sociology is hardly a science. Moreover, people who study the labor market note that more than half of all job-seekers find their positions through networking. If you think networking is deplorable, deplore it in people of all classes; don't use it as a selective argument against people who have more than you do. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

It's not so much that I consider "networking" deplorable as I consider exclusivistically closing networks, to reinforce class barriers, to be deplorable. It's fine to be upper class, but the minute you start trying to close-off access to reinforce class barriers (e.g. making business decisions on exclusive private golf courses) you deserve to be overthrown. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

So your alternative is, what? That the government tell people who they should be willing to have as acquintance, or who they should be willing to socialize with? Or where they may conduct business?

Some may work hard (CEOs, who for some reason have been the lynchpin of our discussion do have to work hard, else they get fired.) However, a person born or placed into the upper class will not fall, even if that person is lazy or indigent;

You show a poor understanding of the word "indigent". "Indigent" means poor, or destitute. Someone who belongs to the upper class is by definition not "indigent".

Indigent: "2. Archaic. Lacking or deficient." George W. Bush is, by the 2nd def., indigent, though unambiguously upper-class. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The dictionary notes that the latter definition is archaic. George W. Bush is not indigent even by that definition, since he is a bold leader bringing democracy to the far corners of the globe.

else George W. Bush (and many others) would have. I do not mean to imply, nor for this article to imply, that every member of the upper class is lazy. They merely don't have to work hard, because they can get ahead via their exclusivist social networks. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Once again, that is an opinion. It is not a fact. The article should not treat it as though it is.

Statements of ability are usually fact. For example, birds can fly. Fact. Rabbits cannot fly. Fact. Upper-class people can go through life without performing any work of value. Fact. Now, to say that "a lot" of them do this, or that it is characteristic of them to do this, is a class stereotype. But to say they have the available option, when they do, is a statement of fact. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Does" may be statement of fact or a statement of opinion. Saying that rich people get by on their social connections rather than hard work is a "does" statement, not an "ability" statement.

These people have top professorial talent, etc., but not top talent as CEOs. I don't believe it's closed, merely that there are few people with as much talent and experience as companies would like. And because of the influence over large amounts of business, a small increase in talent can be worth a lot of salary.—Ashley Y 00:09, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)

Sort of. I should be more clear. Sweetheart deals are part of the reason why CEO pay has skyrocketed. Another is the increasing affluence of society; the people with allocative power use it to benefit themselves, no one else. There's a related split dollar game in economics (if there isn't an article, I'll create one when I have time). You give one party the authority to spilt a dollar among two parties (the "allocator") and the other (the "decider") the option of rejecting or accepting the split; if he rejects, then both parties get nothing. Empirically, the decider will usually reject if offered less than 25%, accept if offered more (even though "rational behavior" would dictate that the decider should accept any nonzero amount). This occurs even when the $1 is stepped up to significant amounts of money like $400.

What this illustrates is that people with allocative power, for no reason related to merit, have a lot of distributional power. Well, duh. People will accept a 3-to-1 unfairness just to get some chomp out of the cake. What happens in large corporate structures, then, is we have inequality/unfairness that is multiplicative at each level (maybe not 3-to-1) and we get exponential inequality as we traverse society top-down or bottom-up.

What this children's game has to do with the labor market is beyond me. It takes as given equality of intelligence, skill, education, morality, and other personality traits among the players. In the real world, however, the value of an employee is determined by the ability to replace that employee. There are far more people with the skills necessary to be competent secretaries than with the skills necessary to be competent CEOs. The skills necessary to become a competent secretary can be acquired through a fairly simple training course; the skills required to become a competent CEO require years of training in business school and still more years of on-the-job experience. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

What the "children's game" (the experiments were run on grad students, actually) tells is the willingness of people to accept inequality in deference to allocative power. In other words, when there is a venture where all people contribute equally, a person without allocative power will still accept a 3:1 inequality for no reason related to social justice. Now, granted, I would even agree with you that what a CEO provides is more valuable than what the average secretary provides. No contest. And it should be reflected in compensation, so there is incentive to excel. However, absolutely no one's contributions are worth 1000x as much as the average grunt's. Maybe you could justify a factor of 50. CEOs get their 1000x-average-worker salaries because of proximity to allocative/executive power, not because it's the just deserts. EventHorizon talk 06:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The fact that grown-ups play a children's game doesn't make it any less of a children's game. If a bunch of econ grad students sat around playing Candyland, Candyland would still be a children's game. Moreover, even if one were to accept the logic of this game, it is merely your opinion that the outcome is unjust.

CEOs are paid what they are paid because it is what the market will bear for the kind of credentials, background, and experience they bring to the table. A CEO's salary, like a secretary's, is dictated by what his employers (the board of directors and, ultimately, the shareholders) are willing to pay for his talents. Michael Eisner was worth $40 Million to Disney for so many years because he turned the company around. The Michael Eisners and Lee Iacoccas of this world are not nearly as common as you would think. And certainly having an IQ of 130+, as commendable as that is in an individual, is sufficient to make someone a good CEO. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Yes, and that market that is willing to "bear" their salaries is a market where the buyer's side is them, people who like them, and people with similar values to them. This is why they are paid so highly.

Once and for all, if you have any proof that CEO salaries are dictated by anything other than market forces, present it. If not, retract this argument. I don't see how the fact that the buyers in this market have similiar values to the sellers is in any way meaningful to this discussion. I have similar values to the fruit vendor down the street who sells me canteloupe and watermelon; it doesn't mean that I artificially inflate the price of those items to benefit him. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

CEO salaries were not so excessive 50 years ago; I recall reading that in the '50s the highest-paid CEO made $500,000 per year. Now, that's chump change for the overclass corporates. Furthermore, many people in government, academia, and the NGO sector perform similar functions to CEOs, competently, and yet are not compensated nearly so high as $140M. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

First of all, you're ignoring a little thing called "inflation" (in many parts of the country in the 1950s, brand-new middle-class homes could be had for $7,000 or $8,000). If you can find a source for this assertion, which I have good reason to doubt, by all means provide it. I will be glad to scour old issues of TIME and NEWSWEEK from the 1950s and see what I can unearth on the subject.

I think most people with 130+ IQs, if they were willing to put in the work, and to take the responsibility, could become CEOs after 15 years of preparation. You're right that Eisners and Iacoccas are rare, but people being paid Eisner-like and Iacocca-like salaries for mediocrity? Quite common. The average Wall Street year-end bonus last year was $110k, and while most Wall Street people (I-bankers) are clearly above average in intelligence, they're not doing anything that any kid at a first-tier Uni or college can't do. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

First of all, I don't think there's any one set course of "preparation" that makes someone a good corporate leader. At least, not in the sense that there's a course of preparation that can make one an academic expert in Russian history or the novels of Jane Austen. Experience in business is a must, but native talent and intelligence are also part of it. This is what CEOs are paid for. Boards of directors are ultimately responsible to their shareholders, who include a lot of pretty average folks like me. When CEOs are paid $140M per year, shareholders want to see results. And shareholders are not willing to give up pennies per share to pay a CEO more than the market will bear. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Boards of directors exist to reward already famous, upper-class people (celebrities in the business world if not the larger one) for being famous, upper-class people. Compared to BoDs, shareholders only exercise token ownership. The only "real" ownership is 50.1%, which is out of the league of most average folks who just own shares for investment, not control. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

More extremist, left-wing propaganda. Boards of directors exist to protect the interests of shareholders and to oversee operations of their respective companies. Corporations are required by law to hold annual shareholders' meetings.

Right, but 50.1% ownership is the only way you actually get control, rather than your interests represented (in hope) by the BoD. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That, or convince a lot of other people with less than 50.1% ownership to band together in the pursuit of common interests. Or, bring a lawsuit against the board of directors, which any shareholder may initiate.

Also, there's what I call the "fallacy of the margin". Say a professor offers 10 students the option of doing a survey (1 hour) and agrees to give the group n² dollars, where n is the number of students who do it. Nine students are willing to do it at the $9/hour, so they get $81. The tenth holdout student doesn't think is time is only worth $9/hr. He demands $15. Well, the nine students (at least if "rational") let him have this unfair share, knowing they'll get $85 instead of $81... but he's not doing anything different and really only justly deserves $10, not $15.

CEOs are paid on the order of $10⁷ not because they are "worth" that much to the enterprise; however, they can (by screwing up royally) cost the company that kind of money, or (by being excellent) make the company that much. However, if each person were paid according the marginal value of his/her contribution ($19 in the survey example) there wouldn't be enough to pay them all what they "deserve". Any well-run collective venture is more than the sum of its parts and therefore the classical argument for high-CEO pay is, ahem, bullshit.

Actually, the experience of Ben & Jerry's in hiring a new CEO pretty much proves that the classical argument for high-CEO pay is, ahem, sound. Under the direction of its founders, Ben & Jerry's had a rule limiting CEO pay to a certain number of times the salary of the lowest-paid employee (i.e, janitors), because Ben and Jerry had socialist-utopian ideas about how wealth should be distributed. The company's bylaws stipulated that this system could be changed only by a vote of the company's employees. When Ben and Jerry retired from the company, a new CEO was needed. The employees ultimately voted to overturn this long-standing, utopian-fantasy rule, because no qualified CEO could be found who would work for the amount the company's rules specified. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Or it proves that 99.5+% of CEOs have egos the size of minor planets, unrealistic expectations of how they "deserve" to live for their +1.5 or +2.0 std-dev of talent,

1.5-2.0 std-dev of talent would make a person more talented than 98% percent of the general public. I don't see who you are to put an artificially low wage value on that talent. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

+4.1 std dev of IQ, if you really want to know "who [I am]" to put a "low" wage value on that.

This proves only that highly intelligent people can be blinded by irrational prejudice and emotion. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

The more relevant point is that, even with +4.1 std dev, I don't expect society to wait on me hand-and-foot, to give me $10⁷ per year just for being me. The notion is absurd. I would look like an idiot if I expected society to treat me like royalty because I had +4.1 std dev of something, when about 135,000 (and actually probably 4-5 times that, since intelligence is not normally distributed) people would deserve to be ahead of me. I hope to achieve a comfortable life that will allow me to use my talents to the fullest (travel, so I can accurately write about places, as I am a writer; free time so I'm seeking my own accomplishments rather than being an underappreciated work-horse for someone else's, etc.) but that's about it, and I don't expect $10⁷ a year out of society in order to do and have these things. If I did, people would likely just laugh at me. So then, if +4.1 std dev expecting to be treated as royalty is absurd, doesn't the point stand that +2.0 std dev expecting to be treated as royalty is really absurd? Uh-huh, I thought so. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A company does not give a CEO $140M a year "just for being him"; it gives him that money in the expectation that his leadership will result in good company performance in the marketplace, higher earnings, or both. It pays him for his talent and skills. Moreover, it is not clear to me that sheer intelligence, as demonstrated by IQ tests, is sufficient to determine how much a person is worth to society or in the marketplace. Other aspects of personality and virtue should affect such a determination as well. And these may be next to impossible to train for.

Those same talents and skills existed 50 years ago and were not rewarded into the $10⁷'s and $10⁸'s. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Okay, first of all, stop putting dollar amounts in terms of powers. It's pretentious and obfuscating. $10,000,000 in 1950s terms is probably about $1,500,000 or greater (prices in the 1950s were about 1/6 to 1/7 of what they are today...see the inflation calculator at westegg.com). You are effectively arguing that there were no millionaires (which I am here defining as "persons with an income above $1,000,000 per year) in the 1950s. That is provably untrue, for the simple reason that Elvis Presley became a millionaire in the 1950s through the marketing of his records and the burgeoning "Elvis industry" (I recall this from a particular issue of LIFE Magazine from 1956...I will have to look for it).

Maybe obfuscating to you, Mr. 10⁶ = 100,000. So, we accept that $500k then is $3.5M today. Also, there were millionaires in the 1950s, and even way before that (robber barons). We're talking about chief execs here. Also, the standard def. of millionaire is "assets exceeding $1M", not "over $1M per year". EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Obfuscating to a lot of other people who may be reading this, and don't want to have to keep punching powers into a calculator to keep up. That's an older definition of what it means to be a millionaire, perhaps the more common one in the 1950s, but in my opinion one better suited to a time when the dollar was worth a lot less. At the time of John Jacob Astor's death, there were a grand total of twenty millionaires in the United States; clearly being a millionaire by that older definition meant something different then than it does today. I am trying to maintain some continuity of social meaning. In an economy that experiences inflation, this is difficult, but we are more interested in what "millionaire" means in terms of someone's standard of living, not in terms of raw dollar numbers. Even by your assesment, I don't see that a $10M salary is excessive for a CEO.

Other more meaningful accomplishments (I don't normally use IQ because it doesn't mean much) and I would risk identifying myself.

Heavens to Betsy! You wouldn't want to do that! [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Not here. It can be bad policy. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Do professors make $10⁷ a year? How about seasoned, talented government bureaucrats? How about most doctors?

Again, you are igonoring the only important point: talented professors, seasoned government bureaucrats, and qualified doctors are not as difficult to replace as a talented CEO with 20+ years of experience in the business world. If qualified doctors were as difficult to replace as Michael Eisner (a situation I hope will never come to pass in this country), I would have no objection to their being paid 1000x a secretary's wage.

Furthermore, I'm not that opposed to CEOs making big bucks when they succeed; if no one's getting laid off and raises are generous and morale is great, then there's no harm in the CEO taking a large chunk of the pie, because he bears a lot of the responsibility. If he's laying people off and not giving generous raises, and this is because he's hording the money all for himself despite mediocre company performance, then there's a problem.

The counterargument, however, is that CEOs get blamed for whatever goes wrong on their watch, whether they really have any ability to control it or not. And whereas a secretary who fails at one employment site will probably be able to find secretarial work elsewhere, a failed CEO will most likely not. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

But the failed CEO is very unlikely, unless he is fired in disgrace, to drop below $10⁶ in his next job. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

$10⁶ is only $100,000. I'm not sure what your real point is. Being fired in disgrace occurs much more often than you think at this level of corporate leadership, particular when a person is brought in with the high expectations that often meet a CEO. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

$10⁶ is $1 million. By fired "in disgrace", I mean fired so humiliatingly that he cannot get a job elsewhere, as for unethical behavior. Most CEOs are given the graceful exit, the "spend more time with my family" resignation. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You are, of course, ignoring situations in which a company goes completely out business while a CEO is in power. When this happens, a CEO will be blamed almost regardless of the circumstances. CEOs who are brought in as lateral hires, with "golden handshakes", are often brought in to save a company in shaky circumstances to begin with. CEOs entering a company in these circumstances acquire a great deal of personal and professional risk, for which they are compensated.

Are those big bad business mags not gonna wike you? Aww...

That's sufficiently childish as to be unworthy of a response.

Frankly, I don't know how much "risk" they take on, compared to people of other social classes. If they're smart, they've invested enough that they won't need to work any more anyway, God knows it's not like they don't make enough money for that. If they haven't, then I can't feel sorry for them. Besides, they'll be able to get jobs somewhere. Now, the upper-class fucks who use social finagling to get control over existing machines may hold grudges, but among the entrepreneurial-type businessmen, failed entrepreneurs (if the failure was not because of some grave fault like unethical behavior) are respected for their ingenuity and experience because, yes, there is a lot of risk involved in starting or running a business. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think you must be intentionally missing the point here. CEOs take on a lot of other people's risk as well; they are entrusted to make decisions that may risk the whole enterprise. A bad decision by the CEO of General Motors may shut down the company and throw hundreds of thousands of people out of work. That's not a risk most of us assume in our professional lives. And it deserves to be compensated at the rate the market will bear.

This is my problem with upper-class people and celebrities; they get rewarded for failing, just for being upper-class, just for who they are rather than what they can do. I'm upper-middle class, thus sociologically very close to them (maybe 2.5% on a percentile scale, of course orders of magnitude below on money matters)

Ah, here we come to it: ugly class envy is what motivates your comments. You haven't made it (or haven't yet made it) into the upper class and so feel need to lash out at those who have. Just what you mean by being "sociologically very close to them (maybe 2.5% on a percentile scale) is beyond me. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Class envy? Bullshit. My goal's not to ascend into their stupid little club; it's to break and reshape the structure and system completely into one that is more equitable and more conducive to culture. I would expound at greater length about my cultural and political philosophies, but doing so might identify me. I'm not a class ascendant at all, I'm a paradigm ascendant: I want to bring society to a superior form. My ultimate goal is to remake society so that notions of class don't exist. (Of course, I do not expect to succeed in my lifetime.) At any rate, if I were to ascend into "the club" I would lose the war I am fighting. This is not a war of peoples or classes so much as a war of ideologies: ideological bigotry (and homogeneity) along with exclusivity are defining features of the club. If I were to become one of them by ascribing to their ideology (and there's no doubt that I'm smart enough to do it) I would lose the battle I'm fighting.

Ah, the pseudo-intellectual's class-envy-in-disguise: sour grapes. Any club that won't have me as a member isn't worth joining. If you don't want to build your life around the pursuit of wealth, that's fine. I'm not building mine around it, either. But if I choose to forsake wealth in order to pursue other aspects of a happy life, such as a job that I actually enjoy or a good family life, I don't claim that my problems are caused by some "club" that wants to exclude me or keep me down. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

"The club" isn't worth joining because it's morally decrepit and (within ten years) soon to be a target.

Exactly as I thought: sour grapes. They won't have me in, so I'll call them morally decrepit and pretend that they're the target of ordinary people, rather than just a handful of irrelevant socialist dreamers in places like the East Village.

Read Fark.com threads on outsourcing, downsizing, or other corporate practices. You will see how much these people are hated by ordinary Americans. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Of course, a lot of ordinary Americans would hate these CEOs even more if they didn't do some of these things, as their companies would crumble and the value of a lot of ordinary Americans' investments would plummet in value. It's amazing how much the left has succeeded in making people think of corporate America as a "them" when corporate America is, increasingly, an "us".

I don't see why you're making this personal. "My problems", which are mostly ahistorical (aspiration-vs.-rootedness, risk-vs.-stability) are not caused by the club; in fact, they would know (if they knew me at all) I am intellectually superior and on a personal basis would leave me alone any day of the week.

Ah, sour grapes combined with an inflated sense of intellectual and moral superiority, commonly called arrogance.

Inflated? Leave your loneliness, and how you compensate for it, out of this. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That will make a good joke on my date tomorrow night. But since the left is so keen on attributing psychological motives to people who hold conservative viewpoints, I feel a little turn-around is fair play. For the record, I will be glad to leave personalities out of this in future, provided we both agree not to attribute "psychological" reasons for each other's viewpoints. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Furthermore, I am not unemployed, nor worried right now about health insurance. This doesn't mean that the club isn't doing some evil things right now: the unemployment and uninsuredness of some of my classmates and friends, while this upper-class luxurification party rages on, is evidence of that. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A grudge is a grudge is a grudge. Whether you are blaming other people for your friends' problems or your own, you are still placing blame in the wrong place. You prefer to blame the upper class in the United States for problems that are caused by changes in the international marketplace, something over which neither the American upper class nor the federal government has much control.

International marketplace. Outsourcing is why the socialist revolution has got to be a worldwide revolution. We need to get all countries to a socialist standard for the good of the world.

Wow, I thought you were merely a throwback to the days of Mrs. Astor. Now I find you're a throwback to the days of 1848. It's amazing how regressive "progressive" people can be. The world is not rebuilding the Berlin Wall. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Also, the upper class could make more jobs if they weren't taking so much loot for themselves. It's simple, you cut your own salary by half and use it to fund a research team, or give raises to your workers, or something of the sort. Duh. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore, my more immediate goal is not to acquire for myself the unfair advantage they have; it's to take it from them so no one has it. They get rewarded richly even for failing; most people don't. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It would be interesting if you would back up assertions like these with some kind of evidence. It might also make it easier for me to take you seriously. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Your evidence, sir. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

First of all, this article gives no indication as to often the golden parachute is used, and notes (as I have) that it is usually used when a CEO is brought in laterally to take on the challenge of saving a company in bad circumstances. In these circumstances, the CEO is not rewarded for failing so much as for attempting the almost-impossible. Certainly being the CEO of a company that is going belly-up isn't going to help you get another position afterwards. Even if Enron had managed its pension plans in a perfectly ethical and legal manner, its CEO would have great difficulty obtaining other work after Enron's collapse, since he would be blamed for that collapse even if it were caused by circumstances far and way beyond his control. For these reasons, the golden parachute is more than warranted.

He would be hired somewhere, or he could start his own company (I'm sure he'd have starting capital). You say he'd be "blamed" for the collapse, even if it was beyond his control. Well, I won't claim it would be good for his reputation, but he would probably make much much more at his next job than an obscure middle-class person who got fired. Even a fired CEO has mucho social capital. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Most middle class people don't fall out of their class when they get fired. Why is this worth mentioning with regards to the upper class?

but if I were to drop out of life, develop drug habits, and become an über-slacker, I would turn into nothing and be utterly poor. That's how it's supposed to be, but for everyone. Society shouldn't have to bear the strain of Paris Hilton's luxury or of Orange County coke orgies.

I'm not sure what "strain" I'm under due to Paris Hilton, unless you count the "strain" of having to see her face on the Supermarket tabloids every time I go to buy milk and eggs. Our drug laws apply as much to Orange County as to the rest of the country. Robert Downey, Jr., may not become utterly poor as a result of his bad behavior, but he has certainly lost his class standing. The same could be said of Wynona Ryder. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Yes, poor Winona Ryder who is still probably sitting on more cash than 99% of Americans will ever see. You do realize, also, that she could write a fucking book about her shoplifting and get a bigger advance, more easily, than an utter genius from the inner city, right? EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't really see much evidence that Wynona Ryder has benefited much from her shoplifting escapade, either with a tell-all book or in her film career. There are certainly people who believe she didn't do it, and they are entitled to their opinion (personally, it's not a subject that interests me much, so I have no real opinion on that matter). Moreover, the government doesn't take away every penny possessed by poor or middle class people convicted of shoplifting, so I don't really see what your point is in noting that she has "more cash that 99% of all Americans will ever see". [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

No, she hasn't written a tell-all book, but she could, and just get a six- or seven-figure advance for it just like every other worthless celebrity who gets herself into some kind of scandal, or has anything to want to say at all, for that matter. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The fact that she could write such a book is no guarantee that the public would buy it. By your logic, freedom of the press is a threat to the well-being of classes below the upper class. The public has a right to consume whatever tawdry trash the publishing houses spew out. If that includes Wyonona Ryder's stabs at self-justification, so be it.

No guarantee that the public would buy it, but she'd get an advance. Moreover, she'd get paid more for interviews on TV shows than most normal people see in six months. This is how celebrity works: you get paid for being famous. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Only if a fickle public continues to be interested in you, or your fifteen minutes don't expire. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Or, with my fist already one inch from that nose, illiterate monkey-boys getting soft-handed for decades despite illegal activity, finally getting out of adolescence at age forty, then getting to be President in their mid-fifties. The Bush presidency (and Skull and Bones, Bilderberg Group which got us into Iraq... plus Enron and the job-loss "recovery" which aren't necessarily Bush's fault)

There are an awful lot of poor and middle-class people who don't get out of adolescence until their forties (you should meet my uncle, who does construction work, has had recurrent problems with alcohol, and has a dating career far more appropriate to a boy of 16 than a man of 46). Why you find this behavior more objectionable among people with money is beyond me. With respect your assessment of the Bush presidency, I have little to say, except that I have rarely encountered such gross slander. You may be one of the people who were screaming "No Blood for Oil" in March, 2003; I was not. Personally, I deplore the hypocrisy by which the purported staunch defenders of democracy at home denounce our president's efforts to bring democracy to a country that sorely needs it. With respect to Enron, its leaders clearly engaged in fraudulent and criminal behavior, and they will no doubt be punished as the law provides. But one must also question the wisdom of Enron employees who put so much of their retirement money in only one stock--namely, their own company. No sound financial advisor would let his client put everything in one basket, much less a basket that client worked for. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Enron employees, lower down the food chain, weren't allowed to withdraw their savings. (You're right, failing to diversify is asking for disaster.)

That is blatantly illegal, at least as I understand the laws that regulate 401(k)s. One can always withdraw 401(k) money, provided that one is willing to pay the penalty and additional taxation involved in doing so. I imagine that this will be an issue in Enron-related trials. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

I don't know much about 401(k)'s so I'll let you have this section of the board. However, I do understand that the penalty for withdrawl is quite substantial. Anyway, we both agree that the Enron employees, though they still got screwed substantially, should have diversified. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As I understand the laws pertaining to 401(k) withdrawals, any withdrawal made before the age of 59.5 has 20% taken aside immediately for payment of taxes, and a 10% penalty is assessed on the withdrawal. These policies are in place to prevent people from dipping into their 401(k) money, which is, after all, supposed to be used for retirement, for frivolous reasons while making the money available in dire emergencies. But yes, the behavior of these Enron executives is illegal. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

For people other than the loaded robber barons you seem to like defending, 10% is a serious penalty. That's real money by a middle-class standard, you know. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's real money for anybody. The penalty is meant to be substantial, to prevent people from withdrawing money from a plan willy-nilly. In that, it succeeds. Even if Enron employees couldn't withdraw money from the plan, they almost certainly could have shifted investments into something other than Enron stock. I'm not even trying to exonerate Enron's executives; they engaged in unforgivable fraud and deserve to go to prison. But Enron employees must take some of the responsibility for overinvesting in company stock.

Iraq does sorely need democracy. My belief is that democracy is rarely achieved by war, especially from without. If 30 years from now, Iraq is a successful and safe democracy with no ethnic strife, then I will be proven wrong, and will have to accept the fact. I still question Bush's motives (clearly profit for Halliburton et al was a major factor in choosing Iraq) and justification, but it's quite possible that I will be proven wrong should Iraq emerge as a successful democratic nation. On the other hand, the Iraqis didn't want us over there in the first place, see Fahrenheit 9/11. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

is when I finally realized that the American neocon/corporate elite ("the club") is a real enemy that must be dismantled (preferably by peaceful means) rather than a harmless bunch of rich party people. During the Clinton era, I was pretty willing to let them go off and do their thing, but the past decade has proven them to be treacherous. EventHorizon talk 06:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Treacherous" is a word I would use to describe the people on the left who are suddenly discovering a whole host of political ideas (states' rights, even secession) they used to consider dead and buried. Talk violent revolution at the coffee shop all you want; the American people has greater wisdom than to take such talk seriously.

Where did I talk secession? I'm not into "violent revolution". A peaceful, soft, and gradual overthrow of the corpofascist elite via the "infiltration scenario" (liberals continue to infiltrate government and business; we democratically and peacefully become more like Europe) is 10,000x better than violent revolution. In fact, a violent revolution would be likely to leave us worse off than we started. Since the coming battle is a war of ideas, and ideas can't be overthrown via violence, I'm not sure that it would be effective anyway. In violent revolutions, the overthrowers often become more oppressive than the people they have overthrown. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Now, maybe a factor of 7 is a bit constricting. 1000 is unreasonable the other way. American society would be a lot better off if we set a maximum wage to say, 100 times the minimum wage. That's $1.64m for a 60-hour week... more than enough for anyone.

CEO pay is an arms-race due to artificially constricted supply. What constricts that supply? Corporations are extremely risk-averse (because they're so big) and they pay a premium for an "in 'da club" guy with an 89 percent chance of successful tenure over a smart, ambitious, young middle-class person with an 87 percent chance of success. This allows the "in 'da club" people to charge a premium. But if we stay an "in 'da club" society, a large-scale societal explosion is inevitable. EventHorizon talk 21:41, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually, no. What companies pay a premium for in seeking a CEO is experience. You constantly assert, without proof, that people attain high positions by being in some sort of club. Provide proof or stop making this assertion.

They could train people, then, as an investment in preparation for future years. You take 5 or 50 or 300 bright, ambitious people aside and say, "Hey, we're going to train you to be a CEO. It'll take 10 years, and we'll be sending you to B-School part-time, but we're gonna track you for leadership. We may not hire you as CEO, but you'll have the skills necessary to become one; we'll either give you a different high-ranking, executive position, or you'll easily have the skills to get one somewhere else." (Of course, some would find they hate CEOing, or just not be competent, but we're being idealistic here.) These people will love you to death. You will have incredible loyalty, and a large pool of people to pick when you want a CEO. Consequently, you may only have to pay $500k or so instead of $10m when you want a CEO. If a lot of companies did this, then there would be a large pool of people qualified for CEOship, and no one would have to pay in the tens of millions. But that would never happen since those 5 or 50 or 300 people are probably so far outside of the club they're across the street. EventHorizon talk 06:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually, most corporate leadership is brought up through the ranks in the manner you have described. You would be amazed at how many people have earned law degrees, business degrees, and other advanced degrees on an employer's nickel. Many CEOs have been carefully groomed, whether by their current company or another, for the position they have reached. Nonetheless, corporations frequently bring in a new CEO because they need someone from outside the company, with new vision, at a critical time. Your assertion with regard to company loyality is absurd. The age of IBM drones in identical blue suits swearing undying fealty to the company is over. The Internet and jet travel make it much easier for people to be aware of, and take advantage of, opportunities far from wherever they are. Corporate America has responded to this reality. Executives at all levels switch from one company to another in search of higher pay, greater satisfaction, a more desirable location, etc., etc., just as lower-paid workers do. But if you're going to object to "the club," you should equally object to a company selecting a handful of its employees to send to business school. Your system simply replaces one alleged "club" with another.

I wasn't proposing that this is exactly what companies should do. It's one out of millions of possible solutions. I don't claim to know the best. I'm only posing that this is a functional way corporations could create more eligible CEOs, if the constricted supply is the reason for the high pay. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The issue here is that you are proposing "solutions" to a situation I fail to see as a "problem". You apparently believe it is unjust for some people to earn a lot more money than others; I don't. My grandmother used to own a condominium on the 12th floor of a building overlooking the ocean in Florida. I used to ask her why she didn't lock the door to her balcony. Her reply was that anyone who wanted to scale 11 floors of the building to steal from her was more than welcome to whatever he wanted. I feel the same way about CEOs; someone who is willing to work 80-hour weeks from the get-go, suffer family breakdown, and make the other sacrifices necessary to earn this kind of a salary is more than welcome to earn 1000x the $50,000 a year I make working 37.5-45 hours a week as a paralegal. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

A thousand for twice as many work hours?? That's a bit difficult. Now, I agree that 80hr/wk is not twice as "painful" as 40hr/wk, maybe 4x. Add in a factor of 4 for the stressful decision-making, and a factor of 4 for the rare skills/talent required. We still don't get to a frickin' thousand. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A thousand for twice as many work hours, at a job requiring vastly more skill, training, and experience, with a much higher likelihood of being fired. You seem to think the labor market should reward people based on how much stress their decision-making entails. Business people, on the other hand, reward based on how those stressful decisions impact the overall organization. A person choosing between heat and food may be under great stress, but his choice effects no one but himself. One wrong decision by a CEO, even one based on careful and due consideration and made with every resource available to him, may effect the whole organization for years into the future. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

So you argue that CEOs deserve such compensation based on how much pain they can cause to other people. Should we pay serial killers not to murder people, then? EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How much pain, or how much pleasure. The flip side of the coin is that a CEO's decisions may also improve the fortunes of thousands of stockholders and employees. I'm not sure I'd be willing to assume the risks involved in steering GM. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Trust me. I know people who would make excellent CEOs who would work for less than $10⁷. EventHorizon talk 00:19, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

CEO pay is likely related to the fact that they largely control the company and there for can set there pay. Seano1 05:00, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Not quite. CEOs pay not have a boss who sets their pay, but they are accountable to a company's board of directors and, ultimately, shareholders. They cannot set their salaries beyond what a board and/or shareholders are willing to pay. Disney's former CEO is currently being sued for just this reason; Disney shareholders feel that his $140 million salary was excessive, given the performance of Disney under his watch. CEOs also have a lot less job security than most people, as they are usually the first to be blamed for a company's problems, even when those problems are caused by market conditions beyond their ability to control. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

That's true. CEOs don't set their own pay; their buddies set their pay. Coincidentally, they often set their buddies' pay, either then or in the future. "In 'da club", again.

Again, no. CEO salaries are dictated by what the market will bear, just as all othe salaries are so dictated.

CEOs do live very stressful lives, that's true. They get fired a lot (I've heard 50% of CEOs resign involuntarily rather than leave by their own volition, and it's believable.) However, they also get paid millions of dollars when they get fired. Most people don't. Frankly, if someone offered me a $2M/year job, with a $10M exit, I think I'd probably take it even if it sounded awful... give it a try, and if it fails, take the parachute. No one will argue that CEOs live tough lives and have to make difficult decisions. On the other hand, some people I grew up with also live stressful lives, and make hard decisions (of a less glamorous sort, such as between nutrition and heating) and I assure you they aren't getting compensated in the seven digits. EventHorizon talk 21:41, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

it being possible for people to better their lot through hard work and effort.

Is that really true for everyone? —Ashley Y 03:18, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

Eh, probably not. Thanks for bringing that up. I don't know who the hell put that there, but I must have missed it. EventHorizon talk 23:59, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

yes, it is. I know, because I have done it. And I have seen many other people do it in my lifetime. I don't understand why liberals feel such a deep need to believe that people can do nothing to improve their own situation in life despite all evidence to the contrary. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

That is not what "liberals" believe. Of course people are frequently afforded opportunities to improve their lives. That mobility exists, in America, is almost evident to the point of obviousness. It's not true for everyone. Middle-class to upper-middle class is not so tough. Middle-class to nouveau riche upper-class is not so hard. (Ya'll never be in da club, but fuck 'em.)

I used to wonder what planet you were living on. Now I wonder what century you're living in. The upper class in America does not revolve around Mrs. Astor's "Four Hundred" any more. It was true at one time that the American upper class looked down on people who what attained money by their own hard work and effort. This attitude was largely imported from Europe, at a time when America lacked the confidence to assert an alternative set of values. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

No, not Mrs. Astor's 400 Families. A different kind of elitism. This type is more fluid, bound to ideologies (corporatism, anti-populism, etc.) than to familial or racial lines. EventHorizon talk 06:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Except that anyone can adopt those "ideologies" (I would prefer to call them "common sense"), which makes their value as a boundary-marker almost nil. And for the record, the 400 wasn't 400 families; it was 400 people (Mrs. Astor's ballroom could fit that number of people). [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

No, not quite. As I've said before, the Battle of 2010 is a war of ideas. At any rate, people can only ascribe to these ideologies if they sacrifice a major part of their personal identity. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

On what basis do you contend that people can only be pro-free-market if they sacrifice a major part of their identity? Maybe you have built your entire identity around extreme left-wing politics, so that reverting to common sense would entail giving up a major part of your identity. I don't see how this is a crisis for all but a few hard-core socialist activists in places like the East Village. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

As it were, I'm a social democrat, not "extreme left-wing". I don't oppose free-markets in all cases. Free-markets have done a reasonable job of setting the price of things like toothpaste and I wouldn't want govt. setting toothpaste prices because, for all I know, there's no good reason for it to do so: it's profitable for the manufacturers and it's affordable for us. But when it comes to human elements (healthcare, for example) free-markets have a ready willingness to become spectacular moral failures. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, on this we shall have to agree to disagree. I for one have no interest in living in a British-style system of "rationed healthcare" and am glad that my employer can choose a different insurance system if employees consider the current one too expense or too deficient in benefits.

Yeah, those countries with socialized healthcare really suck. That's why they exceed us by 4-5 years in life expectancy.

Let's not talk healthcare. If you defend economic abortionism this will really turn into a flame war. You're not even acknowledging the plight of people who are between jobs. Our system is such a moral failure it's a laughingstock in Europe. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Lower-class to middle-class is next to impossible. For a middle-class person to procure any of the special advantages lavished (wastefully, in my opinion) upon in-da-clubbers is next to impossible.

Lower-class to middle-class is a frequent transition in our society, as is the reverse transition. Lower-class people often find ways to transition into the middle class through hard work, talent, and thrift. Walk around the campus at Harvard or Princeton sometime and talk to the kids of parents who arrived in this country with next to nothing and work menial jobs. These kids are transitioning from the lower class, probably (ultimately) to the upper middle class. Education is a lot easier to pay for if you're a poor kid from Bed-Stuy who's eligible for a full ride than if you're an upper-middle class kid caught in that no-man's-land where you can't afford full tuition but also aren't eligible for financial aid. These are the people, not children of the lower class, who start out life $80,000 in the hole. Many of them overcome this setback through hard work, thrift, and certain amount of simple good luck. But your assertion that it is next to impossible to reach the middle class from the lower class is ultimately untenable. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Actually, most poor students I know don't get full rides. They have to take out loans and work on the side and everything else, usually, to float by.

What I don't see is why you consider this a problem. I had to do the same thing, but they are what as allowed me to make it to where I am today, and to where I will be going tomorrow. Managing my budget, so that I can meet today's goals and plan for the future, requires common sense, thrift, and realistic expectations (i.e, that I'm not going to get a spacious one-bedroom in SoHo anytime soon), but it's hardly "next to impossible." [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

They still do have financial obligations to the schools, often. (At least at the schools with which I am familiar.)

As does nearly everyone coming out of school. Very few people pay $35K up front to Harvard every year. But my point here is that most people who obtain higher education don't get education which is this expensive. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com].

True. $35K/year for education is not necessary; in fact, a bit excessive. The differences between Harvard vs. other schools have much more to do with selectivity (the real employment value of a Harvard degree; it shows you were smart enough to get in) than with quality, anyway. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As a Columbia grad, I can tell you that the "real" employment value of an Ivy League degree is not nearly what people make it out to be. I'm not sure that the $35K price tag on these schools is "excessive," at least for those who actually do have the means to pay. The price of education has gone up as fast as it has in large part because people expect a lot more frills and amenities from universities than they used to. That's in everything from science labs to tennis courts. Top-notch students want more and more out of the universities they attend, and the schools struggle to provide it. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

The real employment value of a top-tier degree is, indeed, abysmally low. At one top-tier school I know, unemployment was 15% for recent grads, and underemployment around 50%. It's called a fucked-up society. There should be upward mobility from education and intellectual status, but not downward. In a morally acceptable society, educational and intellectual status would set lower bounds for social position but no upper bounds; in practice we see the reverse: education sets upper bounds (e.g. a college degree, which is nearly necessary but not sufficient for middle-class employment; even some Ph.D.'s in the arts work McJobs)

Education sets "upper bounds" for people who make poor choices. For at least 10-15 years, there has been a glut of new PhDs on the labor market, and yet this seems to have little effect on would-be PhDs who somehow expect that they'll be the exceptions to make it a tenure-track position. I don't know what school you're talking about that has 15% unemployment for recent graduates. PhDs end up in McJobs because they make the poor choice to get PhDs in fields for which there is poor demand. I might want to be professor of religion, but there's no market for it. That's a reality I've accepted, and I'm making other plans.

Right, that glut is because of a lack of tenure-track positions. Who's responsible here is a bunch of university decision-makers (who are probably "left" but still unambiguously the enemy for having followed the sociopathic profit ideology) who replaced tenure-track jobs with low-paid adjunct positions. The decision makers responsible have got to get whacked when The Conflict comes.

No, who's really responsible here is a lot of graduate programs who accept far more applicants than they know they can place in tenure-track jobs. Who's really responsible here is a lot of people gambling on being the exception to the rule rather than seeking out better opportunities not based on a lottery-ticket mentality. You can't bitch that the middle class is squeezed by rising education costs and then blame universities for seeking way to cut the cost of hiring new faculty. That's called hypocrisy.

Re the poor job market for arts people: do you know what it's called when a society stops respecting its most intelligent and educated members? 'Cause I do: Fucking cultural decline. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

and this is just unacceptable.

To you, perhaps. To me it's the invisible hand of the market doing exactly what it's supposed to do.

To anyone with any moral conscience whatsoever. Tell the invisible hand to go wank the attached invisible dick so it stops raping our culture. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, it's the market freeing people up for other opportunities. The Constitution does not guarantee the American people an ever-rising standard of living. What I fail to see here is why your supposed "anti-elitist" moral sensibility thinks arts people are somehow more deserving of a good job market than, say, Iowa farmers. What makes people who can parse Plato more deserving of economic success than anyone else? Why is a surfeit of English grad students unable to find work in their chosen field more of a problem than a surfeit of mechanics, a surfit of plumbers? Plumbers can re-train, and would-be plumbers can find other professions when there's a glut of plumbers. What makes graduate students so fucking special, in your "anti-elitist" opinion?

Oddly enough, the only way I can see a fix to this is through some good old-fashioned intellectual elitism (not that I'm a fan of elitism in general), in the form of the creative 10-20% banding together via collective-bargaining arrangments and using their massive combined power... and the 2005-and-on college grads are a place to start. If all the coders and IT specialists, for example, in the country got together and decided they wanted $100k per year, 40 hour week and upward mobility, they'd get it if they could just get in collective gear. Middle- and upper-middle class unionization is the only way to right this depressingly contracting society. EventHorizon talk 23:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sure, because unionization has done such a great job of giving blue-collar workers job security. Ask all the people who used to work for GM in Flint, Michigan, who have seen their jobs outsourced to Mexico. If all the IT specialists and coders were demand $100K a year, they would just be replaced by people in India. Outsourcing is an inevitable effect of changes in technology and the global marketplace. People have no real ability to demand more for their work than the market will bear. We see this every time the minimum wage is increased; what happens is that inflation simply erodes that wage back to the old standard, and the market goes on. The government would do better not to interfere with liberty of contract, except to the extent necessary to protect the public health and safety. Why you want to solve 21st-century, middle-class problems with 19th-century blue-collar means is beyond me.

No. Outsourcing is the reason why we've got to make this a worldwide effort. The Indian coders and specialists would also be part of that collective. The overthrow of the corporate elite won't work unless it's a worldwide effort, since otherwise they'll always be able to hide somewhere. EventHorizon talk 04:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

So we can have a world government even more remote from its people than the American federal bureaucracy in Washington? So that the Sudan can decide what America should do to protect its own political and economic security? I don't think so. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Now, you are very right about the no-man's-land effect. The issue is that upper-middle class kids, for college, are completely contingent upon the parents because fin-aid offices just assume parents will pay. Most kids of that social class are lucky, but a few get screwed because their parents have their own ideas about how kids should get through college, and paying one's way is just not realistic anymore. So, a kid whose parents make $120k/year can screw him in a way that a kid whose parents make $20k/year can't, very true.

Your choosing to blame this situation on parents rather than financial aid offices betrays your biases. Parents who end up in this situation often have other substantial obligations (a mortgage, elderly parents to take care of, a retirement to plan for, often other children in college). Financial aid offices don't adequately assess the situations of these families in distributing aid.

You're absolutely right about that: aid offices often don't adequately assess such complex situations. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think that, for kids with willing parents, college is easier for upper-middle class than lower class people. For example, at $140k/year with a few scholarships, a student has no loans and work-study is optional. The parents pay a sizable amount (around $25k/year) and how much the student pays, of course, varies depending on the parents. Most kids whose parents make $50k/year or less, however, have to work outside jobs and take five digits of loans.

Oh, how horrible! Some people may have to shelve books in the library 10-15 hours a week to have money for beer and pizza and graduate to--GASP!--$20K a year in student loans. I will admit that there are a few students out there working full-time through school, but they are the exception, not the general rule, among aid recipients. Moreover, I think your analysis puts too much burden on work-study. In most areas, work-study is hardly the only student employment option, and non-work-study jobs often pay better (and are more flexible, since there's no artificial maximum put on the number of hours you can work in a year, which makes it easier to earn money over the summer). I worked (at both work-study and non-work-study jobs) while I was in college, to have money for books and the occasional night out on the town, and I have about $20K in student loans and pay $175 a month--$18 a month over what I owe. In a $2,500-a-month budget, it's money I notice, but it doesn't really crimp my lifestyle that much, or make it impossible for me to either a) enjoy a middle-class standard of living or b) save for the future (in fact, I put into savings a bit less than twice what I pay in student loans). Most other recent college grads I know have about the same. Income varies a bit from one person to the next, but people who think their chances in life are being ruined by $150 a month in student loans need to rethink their budgets. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Pizza and beer? Most people I know who pay their way don't drink often, nor order pizza. Often a dinnerfor them is a salad, which isn't bad or meager, but not extravagant either. You're right that $20k of student loans isn't so bad, but I've known people to go into the $70k range. Again, that's the "no man's land" effect. Student loans; not so bad. The much bigger problem is that in this job-loss recovery, a lot of students can't afford to pay off any loans. The "streamlining" of corporate America has actually been an excuse to finance upper-class partying at the expense of Gen-X and this merits overthrow of the corporate system. EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I meant pizza and beer in a more metaphoric sense, to cover all the day-to-day expenses a person has to pay even when in school. I could just as easily have called it salad and shampoo money. With respect to paying off student loans, student loans are one of the few forms of debt one can have deferred because of simple inability to pay. You can't get out of paying your mortgage or car payments through deferment. Nor can you get out of them by going to graduate school. While I do believe that rules pertaining to refinancing of students loans need to be changed--if you can refinance a mortgage, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to consolidate your student loans more than once--rules for student loan repayment are liberal compared with more other forms of debt. Not paying your loans can affect your credit rating, as with any other debt, but this can be avoided by seeking deferment or taking other appropriate action. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Another problem facing lower-class children is broken homes. I worked with a guy once who got into MIT, but his parents were divorced (and kind of messed-up mentally, but that's another matter) and recoupled. The incomes of both remarriage partners were included (so he had a "family" income of about $100k) but neither of them had any interest in supporting the kid financially. So he ended up at community college and then dropped out 'cause of his stressful finances. EventHorizon talk 06:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is an isolated case, and one that shows the stupidity of the financial aid office in question. MIT should have considered either a) only the financial situation of his two biological parents or b) the financial system [I meant "situation"--sorry--jrwilheim@yahoo.com] of whichever family had primary custody of him (i.e, which one did he live with?), not both. Nonetheless, it sounds like this kid's problems were caused less by MIT than by the simple fact that his family had real problems. I don't know many stepparents who adamantly refuse to support a stepchild as they would their own. If this kid was forced to drop out of community college, I would wonder how he was handling his finances. Community college is dirt cheap in most parts of the country. [jrwilheim@yahoo.com]

Fair enough. I admit that the person in question himself made some pretty terrible life choices. His family was, as you said, problematic. (His parents locked him in a closet for 2 months once, when he was about 15; it was a whole tangle of mess. He also had a wife who lost her job to 12 hours/day of EverQuest.) EventHorizon talk 19:31, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The existence of class strucutre within a society does not mean people cannot improve their lives, materially, culturally, or otherwise. "Liberals" certainly aren't claiming that it does. EventHorizon talk 21:41, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The overall tone of this article, before I began editing it, was that American society has rigid, uncrossable class boundaries.

I have seen research (somewhere, can't remember where) that the US does have less social mobility than, for instance, the UK. Mainly because the tax system makes it easier to pass on wealth between generations. It's inherited wealth that makes equality of opportunity difficult to obtain.

As for CEOs, an old boy network clearly does exist. Remuneration committees are full of other CEOs. CEOs now earn vastly more in comparison with the average employee than they did a few decades ago - and can't honestly claim to be working vastly harder or more effectively. Basically senior executives are robbing stockholders (who are now often members of pension funds rather than the wealthy individuals of days gone by) and their fellow employees.

Exile 12:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Continued discussion

I'm sick of the flamewar, so I'm tempted not to respond at all. I reverted the changes of the past couple days because the signal-to-noise ratio was almost zero. Leave the fascist garbage at home. (And I use "fascist" neutrally because it accurately describes the perspective of the past two days' edits; of course "garbage" is value-laden.)

By the way, y'all know that when fascism was first introduced, it was often described as "corporatism"? Good. EventHorizon talk 19:03, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, fascism was not often descried as corporatism. Its economic dimension was described as corporatism, although this is not the same corporatism that leftists rail against these days. TDC 20:21, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

No, not the same corporatism. Then again, pretty much nothing (racism, fascism, socialism, democracy, capitalism) is a form now, in 2005, anything like what it was 70 years ago. The modern corporate ethos is not the same as 1930s fascism, but is the 21st century analogue. EventHorizon talk 04:30, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

RACE and GENDER

I mentioned this a few months ago, but no one has done anything about it. An article about class is wholely incomplete if it does not grapple with race and with gender. please fix this. Kingturtle 05:02, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't think gender has much to do with social class. Most people will mary both will be considered to be on the same level. If a man if a man is the bread winner it don't mean the women is lower class. Seano1 08:08, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Most people will mary both will be considered to be on the same level.--do you mean that most people, after marrying, are considered to both be on the same social level? Kingturtle's certainly right about race. Re. gender...its not as clear as Seano1 states; people of different social classes marry or couple and still retain behavioral/philosophical traits of their origins, giving rise to many effects. And we should analyze single individuals, namely single mothers, and their socio-economic position. --Dpr 03:11, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I happen to agree that in my experience and knowledge, gender has little to do with social status in the US, while depending on the region race may have lots to do with. Some regions may be very diverse and accepting while others are not. Mac Domhnaill 03:38, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nonetheless we shouldn't ignore the fact that a) women's salaries on average are different (i.e. lower) than that of mens's, and b) single women, especially those with custody of children, often are in a much lower socio-economic status than men. --Dpr 04:22, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good article

This article is already good enough. Why merge?

Yes, this is a good article. However, much of the tone is speculative, or very much seems to represent an ongoing area of study and discussion. It seems to answer the question "what is the current state of the discussion and study of class in America?" instead of "in what way is class part of America?". So yes - it's both a good enough article unto itself to not be merged, and as well seems to represent a parallel, but distinct, topic to class in America. (anon Oct 2, 2005)(Finally created an account, so Dxco 20:08, 3 October 2005 (UTC))[reply]

Dxco, you seems to be right...this article is more on "perspectives and views on class in the US" instead of "class phenomena and structures in the US". --Dpr 02:08, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

no need for two articles on almost the same topic. Merge. Rjensen 01:41, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

De jure class=

The contemporary United States has no legally-recognized social classes.

How many countries/jurisdictions do have legally-recognized social classes today? --Dpr 01:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this is an inappropriate opening sentence. It is often said that the U.S. doesn't have a class system the way the UK does, but I don't think that such statements usually specifically mean the absence of peerages (which have little legal consequence in modern Britain anyway). The "British class system" (why is there no article on that BTW?) is studied mostly in relation to the middle class(es). As to other countries, most have, like the U.S., no peers at all. Joestynes 18:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]