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class system
Sep. 20th, 2010 02:31 pmThe massive biography of Churchill by Roy Jenkins has been my bathroom reading for a while now, and on page 591 I find a passing comment that Churchill "was the most clearly upper-class Prime Minister since the end of Balfour's premiership thirty-five years before."
This citation of the fabled British class system seems a good point to kick off a consideration of whether the U.S. has a class system. This question usually receives one of two automatic answers, either "Of course it doesn't" or "Of course it does." Clearly there is some fundamental disagreement here.
ETA: Discussion in the comments leads me to clarify that by a "class system" is not meant the distinct but permeable socio-economic strata that exist everywhere and which in Marxist theory are called classes. When the question is asked, "Does the U.S. have a class system?", what spawns it is a look at a British or European class system. As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
whswhs helpfully points out, these kind of classes are what in France are called the "estates", they are not easily permeable, and as for whether they exist in the U.S., read on.
( Read more... )
This citation of the fabled British class system seems a good point to kick off a consideration of whether the U.S. has a class system. This question usually receives one of two automatic answers, either "Of course it doesn't" or "Of course it does." Clearly there is some fundamental disagreement here.
ETA: Discussion in the comments leads me to clarify that by a "class system" is not meant the distinct but permeable socio-economic strata that exist everywhere and which in Marxist theory are called classes. When the question is asked, "Does the U.S. have a class system?", what spawns it is a look at a British or European class system. As
whswhs helpfully points out, these kind of classes are what in France are called the "estates", they are not easily permeable, and as for whether they exist in the U.S., read on.( Read more... )
