American Studies Prof. Harry Targ:
According to these sociologists [Robert Perrucci and Earl Wysong] the diamond-shaped distribution of wealth, income, and power that existed during the “golden years” of U.S. capitalist hegemony after World War II began to change in the 1970s. Today, in the “new class society” the top one percent of income, wealth, and power holders, in conjunction with the remainder of the top 20 percent of managers, professionals and support staff of the super class, dominate at the expense of the bottom 80 percent of the population.
He goes on to enumerate the ways Perrucci and Wysong claim the ruling class entrenches itself. A very interesting read indeed.
Do check them all out, but one in particular hit home for me: “the education industry.” I used to teach and tutor for the Princeton Review, the crew who show you how, for a pretty high price, to best game the SAT and GRE. I felt a little funny when I realized I was often teaching classes (at summer academic programs in the Valley) that mostly included the offspring of the very rich and the very powerful (children of sheiks, ambassadors, etc.).
Not a background I can identify with at all. I was helping the rich and powerful–in ways I never had access to–cross the threshold to get into legacy schools I never could have afforded.
I’m reminded of Lister, a Liverpool scouse, in Red Dwarf:
LISTER: Yeah, well. I did something similar once. Sold out.
KRYTEN: You sold out?
LISTER: Hmm. Look, this is between you and me, okay, Kryten?
KRYTEN: (Nods.)
LISTER: Once, many years ago… I went into a wine bar.
He quickly turns back to his curry, embarrassed and ashamed.
KRYTEN: That’s it? (Loudly) You went into a wine bar?
LISTER: Okay! Keep it down! keep it down! I don’t want the whole world
to know!
KRYTEN: Well, what’s so bad about going into a… (He pauses, seeing
LISTER’s expression) W.B.?
LISTER: It means I was a class traitor. I could have been on that
slippery slope: hankering after pine kitchens, sleeping on futons,
eating tapas! Who knows where it could have lead? I could have
started having “relationships” with people instead of going out with
them. Got married, got on the property ladder. God Almighty, who
knows where it could have ended? Next thing you know, I’m playing
squash every Tuesday night with a bloke called Gerald! A lucky escape,
man, a lucky escape.
More excerpts from Targ on the mechanisms of entrenchment:
The education industry, that is K through 12, college and university, and professional school education, provides the tools for credentialing some young people and not others. Usually the highest educational achievement is earned by those who come from privileged class families.
…In sum, the education system, which does enlighten, inform, and train, also serves as a gatekeeper to reward and encourage those from the privileged classes and sustain and reproduce the new working class.
…The information industry … The information we consume is packaged in “media frames.” Since most of the information we receive comes from fewer than 10 mega-media corporations, they are shaping the understanding of the world of the new working class. Why making war is necessary, how the United States must continue to support Wall Street during this economic crisis, and the diabolical reasons why some countries, such as Cuba or Venezuela, criticize the United States are examples of most people’s experience of these issues.
ALSO: If you run into any particular weirdness with the new comment software, please do note it in your comment. Er, provided the problem isn’t the inability to make your comment, that is…
