While the Woke may have demanded access to American institutions via hiring, firing, and promotions policies based on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, it was the Center-Left who invited them in. Without the passive (and sometimes active support of the Center-Left, the Woke would be powerless
This sums up my political cognitive dissonance right now.While i find more common ground with th views of center left people(like Steven Pinker or Sam Harris),and i don't like the conspiracy thinking of right wing media(about climate change/covid vaccines/GMO foods etc.),I dont trust a leftist government to push back against wokeness,those people invited it in the first place.
Thanks for an interesting article with a lot of truth.
Two questions.
1)Where did you get the idea that WASPS had lots of children?
My understanding is that well educated protestants of a certain generation always looked down on Catholics for having so many children and not managing their family size.
2) How do you know that (at least many) elite WASPs weren't more liberal than the average American in the past?
I think of my maternal grandparents who were quite waspy (my grandmother felt very guilty playing solitaire). Their politics definitely resembled the message in To Kill A Mockinbird. They were always very sympathetic to those struggling.
1) My point was not to compare WASPs to other ethnic and religious groups at the time, but to compare the upper class of the past to the upper class of today. Pretty much every ethnic and religious group had far more children in the past than today.
I do know that until 1900 high-status families tended to have more children than low status families. This was at least partly because children were likelier to survive to adulthood, and neonatal mortality was much higher then.
2) Applying the term "liberal" to American politics before 1960 is very tricky. The term is generally used to denote Left-of-Center politics. Neither Democrats nor Republicans before 1960 are anything like a 21st Century liberal Democrat (or even a 1980s liberal Democrat).
All the electoral data shows WASPs upper class voted for Republicans, although the Republican were much more ideologically diverse than today.
If you take the WASP values of Protestant religion and strong American patriotism, most Americans would consider them far right of center compared to today.
The Progressives from roughly 1890 to 1920 got a significant amount of WASP support, but I think that Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican) was its best representative. There is every reason to believe that WASPs preferred the non-Progressive wing of the Republican party, which is why it disappeared.
On racial issues, yes, it is likely that WASPs were more sympathetic to Blacks, but by todays standards, they would all be called racists.
I'd add that the elite today are one of the few groups with replacement fertility, though my definition of elite is top 1% income and not struggling NYTimes journos. It's still way lower than before.
Thanks for your comments. My impression is that elite WASPs then (late 19th century, early 20th century) were generally anti-alcohol, pro sterilization of undesirables etc.) That certainly was a different policy preference than elites today.
It's an open question why the elite ceded power. Was it an ideological decision? Were their talents no longer enough to keep themselves in power? Was it necessary to maintain cultural and political power?
For instance, probably one of the original expansions of the elite was to Jews. It seems obvious that the elite realized that IQ was becoming very important in the modern world relative to other traits, that Jews had a lot of it, and that any elite institution that excluded them would be at a disadvantage.
Similarly, most of the racial diversity slots go to people who are as least diverse as they can manage while still producing avatars that can plausibly "speak for" groups they want the support of.
One of the interesting alignments of today is that the Silicon Valley elite is fighting a civil war amongst itself between autist meritocrats and the woke. A civil war personified by Musk, Vance, and the rest coming out for Trump, but also backed up with data showing a huge partisan rift in tech that has developed this year.
West Coast Tech has always been a separate power center from the Northeast "paper belt", but it seems the last four years have just been "too much" for some to continue to bend the knee.
First of all, remember that the WASP upper class did not lose power and wealth. Their descendants are still there. What they did was allow a huge number of other people into the class. This diluted their influence, but it did not end it.
Why? I think a big part of it was the massive growth in public and private bureaucracy. It was no longer possible to staff all these positions with members of a small upper class. The decision of corporations to hire college graduate was also important. Universities replaced marriage as the class-sorting device.
Finally, the massive economic growth from 1947-73, growth on non-ethnically segregated suburbs, and rampant intermarriage between white ethnic groups broke down many of the barriers. Then the Baby Boomers kicked in the door.
And, yes, the shifting politics of Silicon Valley are fascinating.
Always thought that what made America America was it's vibrant middle class and that the upper one was there to keep the rules of the game fair and square for all (that ALL being redefined over the centuries, granted).
You seem to be describing a cooptation system that diluted (from the bottom) the middle class without giving this new upper a true sense of responsibility or accountability, which is the same, while "freedom" became a "I can do whatever I want; who's going to stop me".
Should that be a reason for satisfaction? a humble writer here has her doubts.
Seen from the bottom, this looks more like: "I haven't had enough in my (humongous) piece of pie; let me come and show you how yours is mine too". We can be all left center we want, what does it really mean? We can be all upper, conservative, ... what do those concepts really mean: on the ground, not from a lofty leather armchair. From the window looking at a pristine view either one of those has a totally different smell, feel, or taste one would imagine. Either or, they both are respectable: both when truly authentically lived by have their place in society. Is it the case today? Or are we facing a big blop of undefined bourders where oportunistic calculations define what today's flavour will be? Tomorrow who knows? Is that how nations, statecraft and ultimately civilisation are built? Asking for a friend.
If so called upper class people, nouveau rich at most, think that left center is a good thing for people who are going to bear the weight of firing, relocating, declaring a few wars here and there, deciding who gets insurance who doesn't, who moves to oblivion, who is rushed under the spotlights of the moment...they're in for a surprise.
Mere point of view, grateful for the opportunity to express it.
One complication about this class system is that there are no good terms to talk about it, this makes the system rather opaque even to many of its own members.
For example, the old-money elites from the old upper class are typically referred to as "WASPs". However, there are many people who aren't members of that club who are technically White Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. This has some interesting effects:
1) An Anglo who achieved success in the post-war boom might very well decide he is now a member of the "WASP elite" especially if he lives outside the small number of old-money strongholds and so hardly ever interacts with a 'genuine WASP elite'.
2) Someone, especially a minority or a recent immigrant, hears populist anti-WASP rhetoric and assumes it's meant to refer to all Anglos, or even all Protestants or all Whites, and not just a small number of elite families.
That is a good point that I should have made more clear. Being a white Anglo-German Protestant absolutely did not make one a member of the upper class. The vast majority of WASPs were farmers or factory workers or laborers. They were the same ethnicity and religion but a different class.
The key was intermarriage. A genealogist could trace exactly who was a member of the upper class based on how families were inter-married. Given todays’s technology, it would probably be fairly easy. Just start with the families that I listed and work backwards.
No, do not use only the 4-year degree criterion. Look at the graphic.
My class analysis uses Age, Education (particularly those with a four-year college degree and those that do not), Work status (whether a full-time worker is in the household), and Marital status.
How do you define the professional class?
The current professional class today has more opportunities to do things than the old elite because it has far greater levels of technology. They have replaced servants with machines. Yes, the old elite had more power for each person because it was smaller, but the total power of the professional class today is every bit as much as the old WASP upper class.
I never said it is the same class. That is the entire point of the article. The article is entitled transformation of the upper class.
And I never called the professional class “an elite.” They are the upper class. And if memory serves correct, Turchin also uses college education in his analysis of “elite over-production.”
The main difference is that the old upper class were open about being an upper class and accepted the responsibility that went along with that, while today’s upper class pretends it is not and often refuses to accept that responsibility.
My guess is that your real issue with my analysis is that you have a 4-year college degree and do not want to be considered “upper class.”
Thanks for the clarifying. We agree on much, and I do not want to get hung up with terminology except for being consistent within my own writing.
Here is where I agree with you:
1) Yes, the WASP upper class was largely hereditary.
2) Yes, rank within the new professional class is based on merit, although DEI is seriously messing that up now.
3) Yes, members of the professional class feel insecure about their status and access to power.
4) Yes, status insecurity is a big part of the reason why they embrace the ideologies of the Left.
Here is where I disagree with you:
1) I think any definition of a professional class that excludes engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists, accountants, bureaucrats, etc, is missing a huge section of the class. Most of these occupations do not require an advanced degree.
2) The big divide in American society is not between those with power and the rest of society. It is between those with a 4-year college degree and those that do not. They all live in the same neighborhoods, interact socially with each other, and have similar outlooks and consumption preferences.
3) No, the professional class as you define it has not “largely escaped precarity.” The competition within the entire professional class is relentless at all levels. No one escapes it. You even said “anyone younger or better can be a usurper.”
4) No, the professional class is not insecure in their high standard of living. You are confusing insecurity of status with insecurity of income and material possessions. It is very rare for a member of the professional class over 30 permanently falls to below-average income before retirement.
5) While I see your point, I see no benefit in separating the concepts of “professional class” and “upper class.” You are correct that those with the most status, influence, and power are those at the top of their fields. But those people do not suddenly change because they have reached the top of their fields. They still have the same mannerism, dress, hair styles, attitudes, political views, and consumption preferences. And as you yourself state, they can be replaced by those who are younger and better.
6) I really do not see a big difference between those who have advanced degrees and those with a 4-year degree. They share far more in common with each other than differences. It is largely just more of the same.
7) Anyone with a 4-year degree who has very high levels of talent, skills and has worked hard for decades can potentially become a member of what you call the upper class. So why separate them conceptually? On the other hand, it is very hard for those without a 4-year degree to do so, except entrepreneurs, military, and labor union leaders.
8) The professional class does not “behave as the less strata of society.” They behave and think very differently. That is my point.
My point was not to compare WASPs to other ethnic and religious groups at the time, but to compare the upper class of the past to the upper class of today. Pretty much every ethnic and religious group had far more children in the past than today.
I do know that until 1900 high-status families tended to have more children than low status families. This was at least partly because children were likelier to survive to adulthood, and neonatal mortality was much higher then.
While the Woke may have demanded access to American institutions via hiring, firing, and promotions policies based on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, it was the Center-Left who invited them in. Without the passive (and sometimes active support of the Center-Left, the Woke would be powerless
This sums up my political cognitive dissonance right now.While i find more common ground with th views of center left people(like Steven Pinker or Sam Harris),and i don't like the conspiracy thinking of right wing media(about climate change/covid vaccines/GMO foods etc.),I dont trust a leftist government to push back against wokeness,those people invited it in the first place.
Yes, I agree 100%. I will explain more why they did so in future essays.
Thanks for an interesting article with a lot of truth.
Two questions.
1)Where did you get the idea that WASPS had lots of children?
My understanding is that well educated protestants of a certain generation always looked down on Catholics for having so many children and not managing their family size.
2) How do you know that (at least many) elite WASPs weren't more liberal than the average American in the past?
I think of my maternal grandparents who were quite waspy (my grandmother felt very guilty playing solitaire). Their politics definitely resembled the message in To Kill A Mockinbird. They were always very sympathetic to those struggling.
Thanks for the comment.
1) My point was not to compare WASPs to other ethnic and religious groups at the time, but to compare the upper class of the past to the upper class of today. Pretty much every ethnic and religious group had far more children in the past than today.
I do know that until 1900 high-status families tended to have more children than low status families. This was at least partly because children were likelier to survive to adulthood, and neonatal mortality was much higher then.
2) Applying the term "liberal" to American politics before 1960 is very tricky. The term is generally used to denote Left-of-Center politics. Neither Democrats nor Republicans before 1960 are anything like a 21st Century liberal Democrat (or even a 1980s liberal Democrat).
All the electoral data shows WASPs upper class voted for Republicans, although the Republican were much more ideologically diverse than today.
If you take the WASP values of Protestant religion and strong American patriotism, most Americans would consider them far right of center compared to today.
The Progressives from roughly 1890 to 1920 got a significant amount of WASP support, but I think that Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican) was its best representative. There is every reason to believe that WASPs preferred the non-Progressive wing of the Republican party, which is why it disappeared.
On racial issues, yes, it is likely that WASPs were more sympathetic to Blacks, but by todays standards, they would all be called racists.
I'd add that the elite today are one of the few groups with replacement fertility, though my definition of elite is top 1% income and not struggling NYTimes journos. It's still way lower than before.
Thanks for your comments. My impression is that elite WASPs then (late 19th century, early 20th century) were generally anti-alcohol, pro sterilization of undesirables etc.) That certainly was a different policy preference than elites today.
Yale was where plantation owners learned how to get the natives to kill each other instead of them. Kurt Vonnegut
It's an open question why the elite ceded power. Was it an ideological decision? Were their talents no longer enough to keep themselves in power? Was it necessary to maintain cultural and political power?
For instance, probably one of the original expansions of the elite was to Jews. It seems obvious that the elite realized that IQ was becoming very important in the modern world relative to other traits, that Jews had a lot of it, and that any elite institution that excluded them would be at a disadvantage.
Similarly, most of the racial diversity slots go to people who are as least diverse as they can manage while still producing avatars that can plausibly "speak for" groups they want the support of.
One of the interesting alignments of today is that the Silicon Valley elite is fighting a civil war amongst itself between autist meritocrats and the woke. A civil war personified by Musk, Vance, and the rest coming out for Trump, but also backed up with data showing a huge partisan rift in tech that has developed this year.
West Coast Tech has always been a separate power center from the Northeast "paper belt", but it seems the last four years have just been "too much" for some to continue to bend the knee.
First of all, remember that the WASP upper class did not lose power and wealth. Their descendants are still there. What they did was allow a huge number of other people into the class. This diluted their influence, but it did not end it.
Why? I think a big part of it was the massive growth in public and private bureaucracy. It was no longer possible to staff all these positions with members of a small upper class. The decision of corporations to hire college graduate was also important. Universities replaced marriage as the class-sorting device.
Finally, the massive economic growth from 1947-73, growth on non-ethnically segregated suburbs, and rampant intermarriage between white ethnic groups broke down many of the barriers. Then the Baby Boomers kicked in the door.
And, yes, the shifting politics of Silicon Valley are fascinating.
Always thought that what made America America was it's vibrant middle class and that the upper one was there to keep the rules of the game fair and square for all (that ALL being redefined over the centuries, granted).
You seem to be describing a cooptation system that diluted (from the bottom) the middle class without giving this new upper a true sense of responsibility or accountability, which is the same, while "freedom" became a "I can do whatever I want; who's going to stop me".
Should that be a reason for satisfaction? a humble writer here has her doubts.
Seen from the bottom, this looks more like: "I haven't had enough in my (humongous) piece of pie; let me come and show you how yours is mine too". We can be all left center we want, what does it really mean? We can be all upper, conservative, ... what do those concepts really mean: on the ground, not from a lofty leather armchair. From the window looking at a pristine view either one of those has a totally different smell, feel, or taste one would imagine. Either or, they both are respectable: both when truly authentically lived by have their place in society. Is it the case today? Or are we facing a big blop of undefined bourders where oportunistic calculations define what today's flavour will be? Tomorrow who knows? Is that how nations, statecraft and ultimately civilisation are built? Asking for a friend.
If so called upper class people, nouveau rich at most, think that left center is a good thing for people who are going to bear the weight of firing, relocating, declaring a few wars here and there, deciding who gets insurance who doesn't, who moves to oblivion, who is rushed under the spotlights of the moment...they're in for a surprise.
Mere point of view, grateful for the opportunity to express it.
One complication about this class system is that there are no good terms to talk about it, this makes the system rather opaque even to many of its own members.
For example, the old-money elites from the old upper class are typically referred to as "WASPs". However, there are many people who aren't members of that club who are technically White Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. This has some interesting effects:
1) An Anglo who achieved success in the post-war boom might very well decide he is now a member of the "WASP elite" especially if he lives outside the small number of old-money strongholds and so hardly ever interacts with a 'genuine WASP elite'.
2) Someone, especially a minority or a recent immigrant, hears populist anti-WASP rhetoric and assumes it's meant to refer to all Anglos, or even all Protestants or all Whites, and not just a small number of elite families.
That is a good point that I should have made more clear. Being a white Anglo-German Protestant absolutely did not make one a member of the upper class. The vast majority of WASPs were farmers or factory workers or laborers. They were the same ethnicity and religion but a different class.
The key was intermarriage. A genealogist could trace exactly who was a member of the upper class based on how families were inter-married. Given todays’s technology, it would probably be fairly easy. Just start with the families that I listed and work backwards.
Question is will this new Elites give up their current monopoly on power without violence?.
Lets see after November 5th
“Some have called this “virtual signalling“. “
Isn’t it “virtue signalling”?
Oops. Yeah. Will correct.
LOL
Another great post by one of the best writers today on substack!
No, do not use only the 4-year degree criterion. Look at the graphic.
My class analysis uses Age, Education (particularly those with a four-year college degree and those that do not), Work status (whether a full-time worker is in the household), and Marital status.
How do you define the professional class?
The current professional class today has more opportunities to do things than the old elite because it has far greater levels of technology. They have replaced servants with machines. Yes, the old elite had more power for each person because it was smaller, but the total power of the professional class today is every bit as much as the old WASP upper class.
I never said it is the same class. That is the entire point of the article. The article is entitled transformation of the upper class.
And I never called the professional class “an elite.” They are the upper class. And if memory serves correct, Turchin also uses college education in his analysis of “elite over-production.”
The main difference is that the old upper class were open about being an upper class and accepted the responsibility that went along with that, while today’s upper class pretends it is not and often refuses to accept that responsibility.
My guess is that your real issue with my analysis is that you have a 4-year college degree and do not want to be considered “upper class.”
Thanks for the clarifying. We agree on much, and I do not want to get hung up with terminology except for being consistent within my own writing.
Here is where I agree with you:
1) Yes, the WASP upper class was largely hereditary.
2) Yes, rank within the new professional class is based on merit, although DEI is seriously messing that up now.
3) Yes, members of the professional class feel insecure about their status and access to power.
4) Yes, status insecurity is a big part of the reason why they embrace the ideologies of the Left.
Here is where I disagree with you:
1) I think any definition of a professional class that excludes engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists, accountants, bureaucrats, etc, is missing a huge section of the class. Most of these occupations do not require an advanced degree.
2) The big divide in American society is not between those with power and the rest of society. It is between those with a 4-year college degree and those that do not. They all live in the same neighborhoods, interact socially with each other, and have similar outlooks and consumption preferences.
3) No, the professional class as you define it has not “largely escaped precarity.” The competition within the entire professional class is relentless at all levels. No one escapes it. You even said “anyone younger or better can be a usurper.”
4) No, the professional class is not insecure in their high standard of living. You are confusing insecurity of status with insecurity of income and material possessions. It is very rare for a member of the professional class over 30 permanently falls to below-average income before retirement.
5) While I see your point, I see no benefit in separating the concepts of “professional class” and “upper class.” You are correct that those with the most status, influence, and power are those at the top of their fields. But those people do not suddenly change because they have reached the top of their fields. They still have the same mannerism, dress, hair styles, attitudes, political views, and consumption preferences. And as you yourself state, they can be replaced by those who are younger and better.
6) I really do not see a big difference between those who have advanced degrees and those with a 4-year degree. They share far more in common with each other than differences. It is largely just more of the same.
7) Anyone with a 4-year degree who has very high levels of talent, skills and has worked hard for decades can potentially become a member of what you call the upper class. So why separate them conceptually? On the other hand, it is very hard for those without a 4-year degree to do so, except entrepreneurs, military, and labor union leaders.
8) The professional class does not “behave as the less strata of society.” They behave and think very differently. That is my point.
My point was not to compare WASPs to other ethnic and religious groups at the time, but to compare the upper class of the past to the upper class of today. Pretty much every ethnic and religious group had far more children in the past than today.
I do know that until 1900 high-status families tended to have more children than low status families. This was at least partly because children were likelier to survive to adulthood, and neonatal mortality was much higher then.