The rise of the overclass

[T_i_B]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9027846/The-rise-of-the-overclass.html

Even more than Britain, the United States has experienced the emergence of an arrogant and deracinated “overclass” of super-rich. Economists say that the super-rich in the United States are now seven times better off than they were 30 years ago. Troublingly, this massive growth of wealth and power has come directly at the expense of ordinary people. Statistics show that the income of the average working male in the United States has flatlined since the 1970s.

This sharp division of wealth has been accompanied by an even more troubling phenomenon: the ideals of the founding fathers have been shattered as class divisions in the US have widened beyond anything seen in Victorian Britain. Social mobility is in the process of grinding to a halt, as the American sociologist Charles Murray has exposed in a brilliant new book, Coming Apart.

Murray exposes how the new United States upper class, which he labels a “cognitive elite”, has developed an hereditary stranglehold over the top professions and management positions. The brightest people tend to marry each other, then ensure that their offspring get to the best schools and universities, with the result that, to quote Murray: “The parents of the upper-middle class now produce a disproportionate number of the smartest children.” These gilded families then inter-marry and socialise together, living in the same areas, creating a phenomenon which Murray labels “super zips” – the 800-plus richest and most desirable postal codes in the United States, where the cleverest and richest congregate. What Versailles was to 18th-century France, these smart postcodes are to 21st-century America – a sure sign of a sclerotic social system and long-term decline.

Murray argues that the emergence of this “hereditary” elite has smashed the bonds of United States society. An essential part of the American myth was the idea that any child, however poor and disadvantaged, could rise to the very top. But those avenues of advancement are now being closed off.

[Sherman A1]

1. It has been a return to the Gilded Age

in the works for the last 30+ years.

[grntuscarora]

2. Points I question...

The article says:

"The brightest people tend to marry each other, then ensure that their offspring get to the best schools and universities, with the result that, to quote Murray: “The parents of the upper-middle class now produce a disproportionate number of the smartest children.”

I'm wondering what study he used to back up the argument about excessive smarts. From what I see, successful people tend to make sure they marry attractive people (trophy wives), and they, and their indulged offspring, are no smarter than the rest of us. They usually look better, though. But then, I'm a nurture over nature kind of gal.

Also, the following is a rather obnoxious quote:

"More insidiously still, the American dream is being killed by the collapse of the work ethic, allied to the collapse of faith and family values, in lower-class areas. Half a century ago, young men and women were encouraged to escape from poverty through ambition and hard work: now they embrace welfare and helplessness as a way of life. "

Don't know about Mr. Murray's neighbors, but the folks in my rural community are working harder and longer than they ever have for pretty paltry wages. The work ethic and faith are alive and well in my neck of the woods.

[Mister Ed]

3. +1 n/t

[Starry Messenger]

4. This is the Charles Murray who wrote the racist book, The Bell Curve.

I suspect his new book isn't a sharp zag into left-wing populism. Here is a review from pro-capitalist Bloomberg news with a critique of Murray's lament for the decline of white people:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9027846/The-rise-of-the-overclass.html

Murray’s second part details the declining hold of the “founders’ values” among lower-class white Americans. Murray identifies these values as industriousness, honesty, marriage, and religiosity. He marshals an array of statistics to show that white Americans are having more babies out of wedlock; indeed, fewer are marrying at all. More are working part-time or have ceased working, independent of the economic climate. They have lost the industriousness that visitors to America since de Tocqueville identified as a national trait; they are perhaps even less honest. Murray all but avoids the fact that crime has been decreasing. Rather, he argues that personal bankruptcy, which has lost its stigma, has become a form of shoplifting—a socially acceptable way to steal.

While acknowledging that relative wages for manual labor are falling, he rejects the notion that this should discourage people from wanting such jobs. He is nostalgic for the era when nonworking men “were scorned as bums.” He thinks the rich have abdicated their responsibility to society by failing to preach that their lifestyle—married, gainful, law-abiding—is indeed superior. The politically correct will find his language obnoxious, or so Murray dearly hopes. Regardless, he builds a strong statistical case that among the lower socioeconomic rung, the bonds of community, work, family, and faith are fraying.

One question I wish he had taken up: Are the “new upper class” and the problems of the lower class related? Coming Apart treats them as separate. That gets to my frustration, which arises in the concluding section. Until then, Murray had merely diagnosed the cultural divide. Now he claims to know the causes. He blames the government and the “welfare state.” This section brims with political resentments; the carefully researched facts give way to bitter generalizations such as “only a government could spend so much money so inefficiently.” The author who tactfully, and wryly, demonstrated how little readers know about the lives of working-class whites, writes of “bureaucrats” with no appreciation, or even interest, in what they actually do. He does not explain why social cohesion should be less today when the Great Society experiment peaked in the 1960s. While blaming the debilitating effect on incentives of social programs, he fails to acknowledge the idea that most Americans probably feel less coddled, less protected today than in 1970.

Murray says we are becoming a European-style welfare state. That conclusion is debatable, but it is a debate that should follow a different book than the searing sociological study he has written. Coming Apart is, he says, his “valedictory on the topic of happiness and public policy.” But nowhere in this volume are public policies truly discussed; their effect is simply assumed. Maybe welfare kept the lower class low. Maybe assistance programs made the rich want nothing to do with anyone else. Hereby a modest proposition is offered: Vastly diverging wages had something to do with it.

Murray is cloaking his fascism in right-wing populism.

[Pholus]

5. Saw a good summary: Murrays sees problem -- solution? Horatio Alger.

Anyway, the problem exists but I sure am not interested in "Mr. Bell Curve's" take on it.

[Starry Messenger]

6. "Anyway, the problem exists but I sure am not interested in "Mr. Bell Curve's" take on it."

Amen to all that!

[Mosaic]

7. Ok, now that it has risen it must fall

And that is a full time job for OWS, the 99%, and the vast majority of humanity. We will win of course.