Daryl wrote:I freely admit that I don't know as much about Americans as someone who lives there would, but would challenge the assertion that Americans have less class distinctions than all progressive societies. My own country Australia has an egalitarian ethos that probably exceeds the US. We do have various social tribes, but they represent different interests not levels. Our equivalent to the American Redneck is the Bogan who is loosely associated with a love of football, beer, pub rock, casual clothing and trash TV. However in a workplace it is just as likely to find that the boss is a Bogan as to find the cleaner is or not, and both may well be mates who socialise outside of work regardless of background.
The concept of "a station" is as alien to us as the concept of accepting it. Our current PM had previously been a Catholic novice, the one before him was the son of a sharecropper (who died when he was 10), the lady PM before that was an atheist who lived with her boyfriend in our White House equivalent, and who migrated here from Wales as a child.
I spend a fair bit of time in other countries as well. When Spacekiwi finishes his exams I know he will support my observation that New Zealand has zero class distinctions. The UK is an interesting place as there still does exist a mistaken perception among a small minority that they are better bred, but once again the average person would never consider that their birth would preclude them from anything. Bad luck, laziness, lack of brains yes perhaps, but not a social level.
My principal exposure to Americans has been through work, and while I generally got on very well with those I associated with, I did see some indications of levels between them. A simple illustration of this was when an American executive was headhunted to lead one of our corporations, and one of his first acts was to instruct staff to refer to him as Mister, not his first name. Caused headlines here and he didn't last long at all, pompous pratt. I was fairly senior in my organisation, and visiting Americans had to be constantly reminded to call me by my first name.
Your link to the US distribution of wealth pdf is interesting, however I recently posted somewhere on these forums some from IMF, UN and the OECD that covered all countries, and the US was much more wealth stratified than many others. The following link does illustrate this well.
http://www.middleclasspoliticaleconomis ... es-in.htmlBasically what it says is that while the US has enormous wealth most of it is held by the top few percent. Australia has a median individual wealth of four times the US, because ours is better spread.
Bother! I re-read my post after reading yours, Daryl. I found that where I thought I was clear I was nothing of the sort.
You are absolutely right. Americans are NOT as eqalitarian as you and I would hazzard many other societies around the world. We have a huge band of different social/economic strata. I will say that our poor are more wealthy than something like 95% of the rest of the world. Our rich beggers the wealthiest in many countries. Most of us here in the US don't have any issues with that.
What I should have emphasized more in my prior post is that Americans don't like being unable to move out of our current economic condition. The poor have a better chance at becoming incredibly wealthy here than anywhere else. What we cherish issocial and economic mobility. The problem with many progressive policies is that they limit that flexibility. By regulating so much of society and commerce, those policies make moving up the economic ladder more and more difficult. Place enough regulations and movement ceases. What is left is a rigid society where one's place in it is set at birth or the whim of the powerful.
The US has a large number of truly wealthy. The people that created Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Ford, GE and all our large companies SHOULD be massively wealthy. Those companies have goods and services that have made countless millions of live better in some measurable way. That increases aggregate wealth and improves the lives peoplelive with their products and services. If they didn't, no one would voluntarily give their savings to purchase those goods and services.
Americans value social mobility because without it, IMHO, there isn't the massive incentive to create the next BIG thing. That next big thing, whatever it might be, makes all our lives better. A consequence of such incentives is a disparity in wealth. As I said most Americans don't mind that at all.
So, yes, I agree with your post. Our society is much more stratified than you guys down-under and less egalitarian in the outcomes achived. We are also a much more mobile if for no other reason than there are much more levels to move around in. And that mobility is what I was trying to emphasize in my prior post.
Sarah Hoyt's post discusses the characteristics that shape our discomfort with being told what we cannot achieve. We celebrate our achievers. The disparity in income and wealth you cite is the best testement of that celebration. Steve Jobs' IPod and ITunes helped create a path for music to enter the digital age and vitalize the entire industry, making many more varieties of music available to more people. Microsoft help make people much more productive in their work and helped companies make many more things at lower and lower prices. Their success makes life better for me directly.
Progressive policies that exagerates that disparity in wealth and calcifies the channels where economic mobility is achieved attacks the source of those social and economic benefits. Attacks because it makes success and failure less within the control of the individual. Our individual choices matter less and less. Success and failure becomes an unearned gift from the successful and powerful, not a mark of how well or poorly indiviudals navigate life's choices. All of which leads to fewer and fewer people willing or able to make the enormous effort to create and then produce the products and services which will help all of us.
Much of my post is a personal rationalization of why the characteristics Sarah discusses are valuable. Others would have different reasons. What most Americans do share however, is that belief in social and economic mobility. We believe in that mobility and celebrate those who have achieved great success by rising from very mean beginnings to the such heights as they desire and work to achieve.