Social class in America
It’s impossible to explain class in America, and I’m going to fail to do it today. But I have to try, because…well, because living in a class-stratified society bothers me, and that forces me to talk about it.
America is a class-stratified society. Class looms so large over our society that we don’t even see it, like a roof that’s so big we think it’s the sky. Only once we finally step outside do we look back at the towering edifice and cry “Holy shit, I never knew that was there!”
I don’t mean to claim that living in Japan for a few years gave me a nuanced and complete understanding of American social stratification. That would be a ridiculous claim. Nor would I argue that Japan is a completely classless society. But when you see top college graduates marry construction workers and food service workers show up to dinner parties with private equity people, you start to realize that the world doesn’t have to be the way it was in the place and time in which you grew up.
Every society does class differently, but every society also thinks about it differently. Americans are famously fond of saying that we’re part of the middle class, but in fact a fair number of us identify as working or lower class:
