View source for Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

{{Short description|1983 nonfiction book by Paul Fussell}}{{Infobox book
| author            = [[Paul Fussell]]
| pub_date          = 1983
| publisher         = [[Simon & Schuster]]
| genre             = Non-fiction
}}
'''''Class: A Guide Through the American Status System''''' is a nonfiction book by [[Paul Fussell]] originally published in 1983 by [[Simon & Schuster]],<ref name="TSING LOH">[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/03/class-dismissed/307274/ Class Dismissed: A new status anxiety is infecting affluent hipdom]  Sandra Tsing Loh, ''[[The Atlantic]]'',
March 2009</ref><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/books/paul-fussell-class-in-america.html On the Touchy Subject of Class in America]  Dwight Garner, [[New York Times|New York ''Times'']], 27 July 2017</ref> and reissued in 1992.<ref>[https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Class/Paul-Fussell/9780671792251 ''Class'' by Paul Fussell] [[Simon & Schuster]]</ref>
==Class structure==
Fussell argues that [[social class in the United States]] is  more complex  in structure than simply  three ([[American upper class|upper]], [[American middle class|middle]], and [[working class in the United States|lower]]) classes. According to Bruce Weber, writing for the New York Times, Fussell divided American society into nine strata — from the idle rich, which he called "the top out-of-sight," to the institutionalized and imprisoned, which he labeled "the bottom out-of-sight."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/books/paul-fussell-literary-scholar-and-critic-is-dead-at-88.html|title=Paul Fussell, Literary Scholar and Critic, Is Dead at 88|website=The New York Times|date=23 May 2012 |access-date=November 13, 2023}}</ref>
In summary, Fussell identifies the following nine classes:
*Top out-of-sight: According to Fussell, the highest class in American society began to conceal themselves and their wealth during the Great Depression and continues to do so.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vqronline.org/class-america|title=Class In America|website=Virginia Quarterly Review|date=Summer 1984|access-date=November 13, 2023}}</ref>
*[[American upper class|Upper]]
*Upper middle: According to Fussell, the upper middle class earns most of its money rather than inherits it, and works in professions such as law, medicine, real estate, and business.<ref name="Class In America">{{Cite web|url=https://www.vqronline.org/class-america|title=Class In America|website=Virginia Quarterly Review|date=Summer 1984|access-date=November 14, 2023}}</ref>
*[[American middle class|Middle]]
*High Proletarian: According to Fussell, these are skilled workers. This class might earn as much money as the middle class, but they perform work that is more physically demanding.<ref name="Class In America"/>
*Mid-Proletarian
*Low Proletarian
*[[Poverty in the United States|Destitute]]
*Bottom out-of-sight
Fussell coins the term "Category X" for people who remove themselves from the American class system despite having been born into an identifiable class.
==Top==
{{main|Affluence in the United States}}
Top out-of-sight are those with immense wealth who live in private luxury and do not interact socially with other classes. Their mansions are situated far from public roads behind high walls, and are thus literally  out-of-sight.
Uppers and Upper middles generally do not socialize with Middles, but Middles hope to find them on [[cruise ship]] vacations.
Uppers and Upper middles do not engage in a lot of creative work or analytical thinking, instead relying on tradition. Uppers live on [[inheritance|inherited]] wealth, while Upper middles  include those financially successful through their own work, e.g. movie stars and millionaire entrepreneurs.
==Middle ==
Fussell argues that the [[American middle class]] has experienced "prole drift" dragging it downward and effectively joining it to the [[proletarian]] class.
Whereas a [[American universities|university]] education used to be rarer and a clear class divider separating middles from the [[high school]] education of proles, Fussell reports that the vast proliferation of hundreds of mediocre "universities" in the U.S. has rendered this an ineffective class distinction. (This trend continued long after the book was published: there were 4,298 degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the U.S. in the 2017–2018 school year.)<ref>[https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2019-02-15/how-many-universities-are-in-the-us-and-why-that-number-is-changing A Guide to the Changing Number of U.S. Universities] Josh Moody, ''[[U.S. News & World Report]]'', February 15, 2019</ref> Education at an elite [[Ivy league]] institution retains class status despite the abundance of universities in the US.
Unlike the classes above and below, members of this middle group are insecure in their class status and are in constant fear of slipping down while hoping to jump up to higher classes.
Fussell notes that a fiberglass [[Chris-Craft Industries|Chris-Craft]] was a common prole and middle class pleasure boat meant to ape the precious wood [[yacht]]s of the upper classes. Middles are terrified of causing conflict and resort to innocuous topics of conversation to avoid intellectual debate.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}
==Bottom==
{{main|Poverty in the United States}}
Destitutes have virtually no capital or [[income]], and include the [[incarceration in the United States|incarcerated]] and the [[insane asylum|institutionalized]], who are guarded by proles.
Bottom out-of-sight are the [[homelessness in the United States|homeless]], living under bridges or otherwise separated from society. Although they occupy opposite ends of the class spectrum, both Top out-of-sight and Bottom out-of-sight groups are physically separated from the other classes.
==Category X==
{{further|Bohemianism|LOHAS|Cultural Creatives|Bobos in Paradise}}
In the final chapter, ''The X Way Out'', Fussell identifies "category X" people who exist outside of the US class structure. Fussell argues that it is essentially impossible to change one's social class —up or down— but it is possible to extricate oneself from the class system by existing outside the system as a X person. (In the US, Middles and proles are [[myth of meritocracy|conditioned]] to believe in [[meritocracy]], despite class mobility being among the lowest in [[industrialized economies]].)<ref>{{Cite web|title=U.S. lags behind peer countries in mobility|url=https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/|last=Gould|first=Elise|date=10 October 2012|website=Economic Policy Institute|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121014012228/http://www.epi.org:80/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/ |archive-date=2012-10-14 |access-date=}}</ref> He states that X people do self-directed work without a boss or supervisor; they are writers, artists, musicians and others "creative" types. X people dress comfortably, wearing [[L. L. Bean]], [[Lands' End]], and [[thrift store]] purchases. They drink  [[wine]], [[gin]], and [[vodka]]— but not famous [[advertising|advertised]] brand names. X people speak multiple languages and are familiar with many cities internationally, often simply for the joy of knowledge. X people generally disregard social norms because they have no interest in class status and disdain the Middles who are so concerned with it. Fussell names the [[Mark Twain]] character [[Huckleberry Finn]] as an archetypal Category X person.
==Reception==
In a 2009 review for ''[[The Atlantic]]'', [[Sandra Tsing Loh]] stated: "The experience of reading (and re-reading) ''Class'' is akin to wiping goggles one didn't know were fogged".<ref name="TSING LOH" /> The book review website ''The Pequod'' rated the book a 9.5 (out of 10.0) and called it "Paul Fussell's most sustained work of genius, a razor-sharp and bitterly savage exploration of the class rigidities of our supposedly classless society."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Class: A Guide Through the American Status System {{!}} The Pequod |url=https://the-pequod.com/books/class-guide-through-american-status-system |access-date=2022-10-31 |website=the-pequod.com}}</ref> Writing in ''Esquire'', Dwight Garner found the book "impossible to put down because its sentences were so crisp, honest, and witty. It was more impossible to put down because it addressed a topic that I sensed had a moonlike pull over human affairs in general and my life in particular, but that no one spoke about."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-02-02 |title=We Admire Americans Who Don't Forget Their Roots |url=https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a51761/class-in-america/ |access-date=2022-10-31 |website=Esquire |language=en-us}}</ref>
The chapter on "Category X" people was described as "insufferably self-regarding" by [[David Brooks (commentator)|David Brooks]] in a 2021 article on [[Bobos in Paradise|bourgeois bohemians]]; Brooks states that ''Class'' is "a caustic and extravagantly snobby tour through the class markers prevalent at the time."<ref>[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/blame-the-bobos-creative-class/619492/ HOW THE BOBOS BROKE AMERICA: The creative class was supposed to foster progressive values and economic growth. Instead we got resentment, alienation, and endless political dysfunction.] David Brooks, ''[[The Atlantic]]'', SEPTEMBER 2021</ref>
==See also==
*[[Social class in the United States]]
*[[Socioeconomic mobility in the United States]]
*[[Myth of meritocracy]]
*[[Affluence in the United States]]
*[[Poverty in the United States]]
*[[Income inequality in the United States]]
*[[Social class in American history]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Social class}}
{{Young adult development}}
{{Life in the United States}}
{{Demographics of the United States}}
[[Category:1983 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:American non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Wealth in the United States]]
[[Category:Upper class culture in the United States]]
[[Category:American upper class]]
[[Category:American middle class]]
[[Category:Working class in the United States]]
[[Category:Labor in the United States]]
[[Category:Social class in the United States]]
[[Category:Books about the United States]]
[[Category:Socio-economic mobility]]
[[Category:Stereotypes of the upper class]]