What class are you? (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

Do you believe that America is a free society, one in which each citizen has the same rights as all citizens, where hard and fast socio-economic class divisions do not really exist? There are not many today who believe that old wives’ tale although the time was, in the memory of many of us, when it was a widely accepted myth.

We do not mean to imply that most Americans, today, are any clearer on the question of class. In fact, sociologists in these times have done a remarkable job in confusing the issue. In America, they inform us. there are a number of distinct classes. The writer Vance Packard, in “The Status Seekers," sets down a total of five divisions, two of them in what he calls "the Diploma Elite" and three in “The Supporting Classes." On top of the heap are the members of “The Real Upper Class" and “The Semi-Upper Class." On the lower levels running from top to bottom are “The Limited Success Class," “The Working Class,” and “The Real Lower Class." Note well that Mr. Packard does recognize that there is a working class but it is but one among three distinct "supporting'’ classes. The working class, in Mr. Packard's scheme of things, seems to be sandwiched between a top slice of white-collar and higher income blue-collar workers, and a bottom slice of the lower I.Q. workers, the slum dwellers.

There are, no doubt, other class designations, that are better known, designations such as upper upper, lower upper, upper middle, lower middle, upper lower, and lower lower. If you were not confused before now you should be by now. And yet, such terms are used by professionals who are supposed to know what they are talking about because their field is sociology.

Well, let’s take a closer look at the confusion. How does one go about determining one’s class? By education? By Income? Or perhaps it should be based on one’s parents' education or income, or on one’s children’s education or income? Where do the operators of a mamma and pappa grocery store that keeps open on a 12-hour-per-day, seven-day week basis fit? Suppose they wind up with $10,000 a year but have no better than high school education, or perhaps not even that much? Are they lower middle? But supposing they have a doctor or lawyer son and own a house in a better-type neighborhood? Then they might be upper middle. Or perhaps even lower upper If their son’s income is away up there.

Or how about the college graduate with an income of $12,000 per year. Is his class determined by his education or his income or both? And is he in a higher or lower class than a construction worker who dropped out of high school but who earns $15,000 per year and owns a split level home next to his? But, you might protest, the construction worker is not secure because were the building boom to slow he would suffer in income. Ah yes! But the college graduate is in the same boat or have you forgotten the engineers, doctors, and lawyers who adorned the WPA rolls In the 30s? Professionals with degrees also sell the commodity labor-power, their particular skills, and are subject to the vicissitudes of the labor market, too.

Socialists have a far simpler and far more scientific method of determining class. Do you work because you must work in order to live, be you doctor, lawyer, engineer, bricklayer, hod carrier, grocery clerk, or casual odd job laborer? Then you belong to the working class and there’s no use trying to kid yourself into thinking otherwise. Certainly some workers earn more than others, live better, but the size of one’s salary is not pertinent to the question of class. If your income is not based upon wages or salaries but upon rent, interest and/or profit you are a member of the capitalist class, one of some 10% of the population. You may be a big capitalist or you may be a small capitalist but this is not the point. Socialists divide society into two basic classes based upon ownership or lack of ownership of the means for producing and distributing wealth. And socialists aim for a world in which classes, real or imaginary, will cease to exist, where people will no longer be classified as capitalist or worker but simply as people.