Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I feel like the list is how the middle class perceives the upper class. The "actual" truth may be different than we imagine.
I doubt many people on this forum actually belongs to the upper class, but it would be interesting to see how they actually behave/think.
Most of these are movie/TV cliches so I'm not sure. I sure as heck have never even come closer to any upper class people aside from the news/TV so I would have no clue.
One of the heirs of the Johnson & Johnson fortune did make a documentary about living life as a kid born into wealth. So maybe that will give us a small glimpse of their lives.
I have that documentary. Hornblower and that J & J heir are USA Old Money. Also, Grey Gardens is another good documentary.
The above list (for brevity, not fully quoted) makes some insightful points. But it should be realized that "Old Money" isn't necessarily upper-class. The money can be diluted over succeeding generations, and the more unruly progeny can easily decline in class. Also, this is America. How much of our Old Money families can trace their monied lineage to much further than 1870 or so? Not exactly "Old".
It's a gauche stereotype amongst the middle classes, that the upper classes don't work. Fretting over one's career is supposedly a trapping of the middle class. All of the evidence that I've seen is precisely to the contrary. The higher one gets up the social ladder, the more imperative it becomes to make a lasting contribution to humanity, through some sort of artistic or scientific or humanistic pursuit. A wanton life of leisure is, in the phrasing of the above-quoted poster, UMC.
Old Money is disciplined and eschews instant gratification, but clipping coupons? Slight hyperbole there?
I agree, on both counts.
The American class structure is difficult to untangle. We don't have titled nobility. We have the trappings of an egalitarian system. Many highly-educated people are materially disadvantaged, while all sorts of Proles are successful businessmen. But American society is also obsessively aspirational. In most other places, people are more content with their station in life, perhaps more fatalistic. Americans believe that with sufficient imagination and fortitude, they too can rise, and there's no limit to how far. Perhaps it's a wisdom of the highest classes, and simultaneously also the lowest, to realize that most people don't move very far, regardless of their pluck and spirit.
"Eschewing instant gratification" is middle class. A true Old Money scion can have instant gratification should they choose this but it does not define them if they delay gratification. Besides, the trust fund rapidly diminishes if this is done too frequently. Old Money values longevity and tradition. As for "slight hyperbole", imagine if you have inherited shares of stock in a company that has been passed down from generation to generation for 5 or more generations. As an example, let us say that it is a very simple position of one stock such as $10 million in Clorox. Clorox currently has a dividend rate of 3%, which would be an annual payout of roughly just $300,000. After 5+ generations, the current owner has been instilled with Old Money values. Cost cutting and saving are used to preserve, rather than GET AHEAD(middle class), which includes sales, buying second hand items(Old Money usually has inherited both things and property anyway) and coupons(UMC does not really use them since they work for high wages technically). Old Money is(I know, this sounds odd to say.) literally on a budget. One can take this example and expand it with rents from real estate, mining rights, etc. The assets are usually ones that have low potential yet are stable over the long term. UMC always has the hope of HIGHER EARNING POTENTIAL but at the Old Money level potential has been realized; the goals are quite different. It's like the modern day truism: A method used to get somewhere is never the same method used to stay somewhere.
Last edited by christian5327; 11-02-2014 at 10:19 AM..
The above list (for brevity, not fully quoted) makes some insightful points. But it should be realized that "Old Money" isn't necessarily upper-class. The money can be diluted over succeeding generations, and the more unruly progeny can easily decline in class. Also, this is America. How much of our Old Money families can trace their monied lineage to much further than 1870 or so? Not exactly "Old".
It's a gauche stereotype amongst the middle classes, that the upper classes don't work. Fretting over one's career is supposedly a trapping of the middle class. All of the evidence that I've seen is precisely to the contrary. The higher one gets up the social ladder, the more imperative it becomes to make a lasting contribution to humanity, through some sort of artistic or scientific or humanistic pursuit. A wanton life of leisure is, in the phrasing of the above-quoted poster, UMC.
Old Money is disciplined and eschews instant gratification, but clipping coupons? Slight hyperbole there?
I agree, on both counts.
The American class structure is difficult to untangle. We don't have titled nobility. We have the trappings of an egalitarian system. Many highly-educated people are materially disadvantaged, while all sorts of Proles are successful businessmen. But American society is also obsessively aspirational. In most other places, people are more content with their station in life, perhaps more fatalistic. Americans believe that with sufficient imagination and fortitude, they too can rise, and there's no limit to how far. Perhaps it's a wisdom of the highest classes, and simultaneously also the lowest, to realize that most people don't move very far, regardless of their pluck and spirit.
Very Old Money, as in Japanese Royal Family(2000+ years) and British Royalty(1000+ years) and certain Dukes and Earls(Earl of Arrundel, which is a subsidiary title to the Duke of Norfolk--600+ years) work for no pay. For example, Clarendon House is given a stipend by Parliament but does not pay Prince Charles directly. Usually, at this level good causes are patronized but it is because of nobless oblige, rather than a middle class notion of "making a difference". The most important thing to Old Money is preservation and tradition. Prince Charles as a patron is acting in a traditional fashion much like his ancestors since the days of the beginning of the House of Wettin(their bloodline simply does not just begin with William the Conqueror).
What happens when nobility loses their estate or when samurai have nothing but their sword and family legends? They would be considered impoverished upper class. In the American system, does Old Money remain Old Money should the money disappear? Step by step: The generation after the money disappears Old Money values are still transmitted. However, that generation would have to work for pay in order to make ends meet. So, family connections are used in order to procure word of mouth positions that non-U individuals will never see. Usually, if this generation has a daughter or two, then family connections again can procure a marriage with a scion of another Old Money family, much like the 8th or 9th(?) Duke of Marlborough married a Vanderbilt because the Dukedom was near bankruptcy. Let us say that all stopgaps and safety net measures fail. The technically hybrid Old Money/Upper UMC generation transmits its context to the next generation. At this point, at least some family connections have died out. Now, UMC values start to creep in...the rest can be extrapolated. This is exactly the same pattern but in an opposite direction when a lower class family becomes blue collar aristocrats, then lower middle class, then eventually the lower reaches of UMC. All one has to do is keep the following impossible to prove with hard evidence truism in mind: Extremes meet.
Very true, families mostly neither rise nor fall too far away from their starting context(the apple does not fall too far from the tree). Even if a lower class person through merit or talent infiltrates the UMC, he or she will still exhibit characteristics from his or her starting context. It takes at LEAST 2 or 3 generations for a family to gel with their position. Taking myself as an example, I can move into a trailer park because of dire circumstances then place a rather large television in the living room along with plastic superhero memorabilia and have canned beer strewn about my doublewide space(this sounds so entertaining that I'm tempted to embark upon this adventure). However, it would take a generation or two for this to gel---4 generations' worth of mediocre lawyers and corresponding day pass UMC values and card carrying permanent Middle middle class values overall would have to be overridden, even forgotten. The corollary for me of course is that regardless of my merit and talent I do not change my background. So, a Yale JD with all of the appropriate trimmings(i.e. connections) and a full partnership at a white shoe firm in Manhattan will not change my overall context very much; it would have to be repeated for 2 or 3 generations. So, I neither care nor worry about moving up or down---it has been a holding pattern for 2 generations now...lol.I also notice that humans seem to hold people that they perceive just beneath them in contempt. So, a solidly lower class trailer park family whose scion finally breaks into the lower reaches of the middle class generally would display negative emotions about trailer parks much like the middle class looks down upon manual labor----"too dirty". However, if a person's social standing is so far removed, then there is no friction between them and the person so far below or above. Example: Prince Charles does some gardening as a hobby and would rather keep wearing a 30 year old bespoke suit by his Anderson and Sheppard Savile Row tailor(good news: Savile Row is more affordable than one realizes---many no name tailors exist on the street) and RESIST having a new suit tailored. At a certain level of standing, newness is emphasized, second hand items are taboo and one does not do any gardening or more commonly, yard work.
Last edited by christian5327; 11-02-2014 at 10:47 AM..
The key question is if the above is the case then what is the difference between them and the Hilton girls? The Hilton girls INHERITED the Hilton fortune .
I hate that I know this but Paris Hilton 'only' got about $5 million from her grandfather because he got angry about how she was behaving in public and changed his will so that most of what he'd planned as her inheritance went to charity instead. The rest of her $50-$100 million net worth comes from tv shows, personal appearances, and fashion branding and endorsement deals in areas like perfume and shoes. She isn't the sharpest crayon in the box in many ways, but she's quite savy about money.
Getting your name on a perfume bottle and having it sell well can be very profitable indeed.
I also notice that humans seem to hold people that they perceive just beneath them in contempt.
Very true! And this is why America's "working classes" so biliously despise the persons one tier beneath them, which is to say part-time retail employees and recipients of various poverty-relief programs. The resentment is only partially based on some receiving benefits and others self-defining as having worked for everything that they have. Moving up the scale (on the assumption that a quantifiable scale exists), college graduates tend to denigrate those who dropped out of college, or who never attended.
I have that documentary. Hornblower and that J & J heir are USA Old Money. Also, Grey Gardens is another good documentary.
Just watched the Born Rich documentary on youtube...the Johnson kid is pretty inquisitive and seems smart, alot of the other kids seemed like complete D-bags though
But they ALL seem to have NO idea what they want to do with their life.
It's interesting to see the pattern...basically first gen is always some dirt poor immigrant that started up the whole thing, then the 2nd gen built up the wealth...and now these 3rd gen kids are basically spending the money on Crystal champagne and cars and yachts and whatever....so how will the future generation care for the money?
It's interesting to see the pattern...basically first gen is always some dirt poor immigrant that started up the whole thing, then the 2nd gen built up the wealth...and now these 3rd gen kids are basically spending the money on Crystal champagne and cars and yachts and whatever....so how will the future generation care for the money?
This scenario poignantly illustrates the difference between class and wealth. "Upper class" would be along the lines of poor immigrant kid arrives in Massachusetts in 1675, but happens to be of the "right" ethnicity, national origin and religious persuasion. Said kid is an apprentice somewhere. His son becomes an established tradesman. The next generation does even better in business, sending their children to the local college, to become pastors, medical doctors, lawyers and the like. In another 3-4 generations the family has finally ascended to the higher echelons of class structure. And it is the upbringing and totems of that class that retain their grip and which preclude a descent into boorish decadence.
Too fast of a material rise means Proles overconsuming, because their spunk and hustling has bestowed upon them money, but not prudence or grace. In fact one reason that the class-system is so stable is that high-achieving outliers tend to be followed by spendthrift progeny.
Paul Fussell wrote and published a book called Class in 1982 (revised in 1992) and he goes into quite some detail about the American class system in a very frank way; he spent a lot of time on the 'upper class' and the 'proletarian' (ie working classes)--I feel its more or less accurate when describing the upper class, generally speaking.
What the OP lists is really a mix of New vs. Old Money qualities and upper-middle class ones as well (Number two is definitely upper middle class).
Personally, I do not see class structure in terms of actual income or money/property holdings but the way one lives and acts. That said, there is some vast difference in terms of Old Money versus New Money and the two just do not get along very well---more so the Old not accepting the New, but it does go both ways to some degrees. New Money is flashy, tacky and still sees class in terms of how much money one has/earns--not how they use and display (or not display) it. Old Money is non-pretentious, confident and understated; they are used to the things which money can get so there is no need to show it. To do so would be very vulgar, something which they tend to view new-money as.
The upper middle class has the tendency to slave away at higher education with advanced degrees, long work hours and be pretentious with the full intention of impressing and aspiring to be upwardly socially mobile at times. The New Money may or may not have to get to where they are (mostly defined in terms of how much money and property, but the previous values and behaviors are still apparent more or less). Old Money does not do this: they are educated yes, but its not for show or to be used to land a high paying job, not at all. They get education more because its part of their family/social tradition....much education is acquired casually outside of school as well, in their environment of educated family and peers....the entire Old Money family is well educated, though not necessarily Ivy League these days.
Paul Fussell wrote and published a book called Class in 1982 (revised in 1992) and he goes into quite some detail about the American class system in a very frank way; he spent a lot of time on the 'upper class' and the 'proletarian' (ie working classes)--I feel its more or less accurate when describing the upper class, generally speaking.
What the OP lists is really a mix of New vs. Old Money qualities and upper-middle class ones as well (Number two is definitely upper middle class).
Personally, I do not see class structure in terms of actual income or money/property holdings but the way one lives and acts. That said, there is some vast difference in terms of Old Money versus New Money and the two just do not get along very well---more so the Old not accepting the New, but it does go both ways to some degrees. New Money is flashy, tacky and still sees class in terms of how much money one has/earns--not how they use and display (or not display) it. Old Money is non-pretentious, confident and understated; they are used to the things which money can get so there is no need to show it. To do so would be very vulgar, something which they tend to view new-money as.
The upper middle class has the tendency to slave away at higher education with advanced degrees, long work hours and be pretentious with the full intention of impressing and aspiring to be upwardly socially mobile at times. The New Money may or may not have to get to where they are (mostly defined in terms of how much money and property, but the previous values and behaviors are still apparent more or less). Old Money does not do this: they are educated yes, but its not for show or to be used to land a high paying job, not at all. They get education more because its part of their family/social tradition....much education is acquired casually outside of school as well, in their environment of educated family and peers....the entire Old Money family is well educated, though not necessarily Ivy League these days.
Paul Fussell is an alias. The book was also meant to be very tongue-in-cheek though it has some truisms within. New Money is UMC. Fussell notes that UMC members treat life like a game. The whole range of the middle class strives and it's not a problem to talk about money. Above this level it is vulgar to talk about money while the status quo is maintained. Also, the living room scale is quite amusing. I happen to love aquariums and I like to go bowling whenever the opportunity presents itself. Then again, theoretically I can wear polyester, eat my steaks well done, respect labor and live in a cookie cutter rambler with a workshop and do everything that a lower class person does yet the very fact that I am a 4th generation mediocre lawyer makes me middle class. Really, social class is so varied and complex. I like to drink Bordeaux Merlot while I'm eating crusty Last Supper bread with extra virgin olive oil and vinegar as a dip whenever I binge watch on Netflix old episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in my living room.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
