5 ms·

wealth and class are two separate things. You can very much be lower class wealthy (Donald Trump) and upper class poor (every post-doctoral barista.) the need

wealth and class are two separate things. You can very much be lower class wealthy (Donald Trump) and upper class poor (every post-doctoral barista.) the need to signal wealth, affluence, and success however is very much a middle class eccentricity as cited by Paul Fussel. Middle class people put stickers on their car to indicate their college, drive luxury vehicles that stretch them to the brink of their finances and insist on an almost suffocating degree of verbiage in their conversations. best summed up as $15 word people with $5 ideas they picked up on cable TV. They read, but they cant read positionally to determine a counterargument to a narrative theme. They rent limousines, they buy luxury goods and they conspicuously follow trends in fashion and thought (magnetic bumper stickers for the troops or plastic fitness bracelets.) the baby-on-board sticker is in prominent display because you need to know their importance. the upper class do not. Instead the only conscious acquisitions they make align to their personal preferences, which are largely sacrosanct. Marketing may inform their choices, but appeals to gender and attempts to undermine their confidence will generally fail. They went to college, but its none of your concern. They dont get to the airport in a bentley or a rolls if they are wealthy, because they do not drive. They drive slowly because the well planned day revolves around them, not the other way round. They are quick to apologise, listen intently, and speak directly. what you see is largely what you get. the lower class are largely the same as the upper class. they never went to college, but they dont care if you know. goods and services are purchased utilitarian or without consideration and the substance is largely overt or appeals to a simple motif (live/laugh/love, bless this mess, animatronic wall bass.) They know exactly what they like.

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
I would disagree that the upper class are not swayed by identity markers like gender. There is plenty of sway happening in the upper class, specifically on assessing peers and concerning class pooling (especially among the upper class nonwhite in a majority white country). There’s also plenty of appearances for gender markers— fatness is low class.
- temp2022account 3y ago
  > There is plenty of sway happening in the upper class I mean my anecdata says it _looks_like_ there is plenty of sway - the end goal of course is as always distraction from useful information that can be used for planning
doubleg72 3y ago
You hit the nail on the head.
xeromal 3y ago
I think I generally agree with your sentiment but how are mega yatchs explained? They're not a practical choice because there's more rooms and resources on it then is humanly possible to consume either with friends or by yourself. They are only available to the mega mega rich. What drives a mega wealthy person to choose a yacht
- david-gpu 3y ago
  > What drives a mega wealthy person to choose a [mega] yacht Private jets allow them traveling without the inconvenience of other people. Mega yatchs allow them having a private hotel that follows them as they travel. A mega wealthy person has a busy schedule meeting with other elites, and they will often want to do that with maximum comfort and privacy. As long as the schedule isn't too tight, their crew can guarantee that the yatch will be there for them when they arrive, without the risk of having to see or be seen by lesser people. The fact that the immense majority of people can't do the same is just the icing on the cake.
  - defrost 3y ago
    Having a fancy floating house boat is strictly the small beer end of mega yachts for the ultra wealthy. Paul Allen's Octopus was so much more: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(yacht) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(yacht) [2] https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/editorial-features/iconic-yachts-octopus https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/editorial-features/...
    - onos 3y ago
      This is an interesting example. The wiki said he was worth $200B at his death, while his boat cost $200M when built. When he died it sold for 230M. So in a sense it was an asset, in that it did not depreciate (ignoring inflation). Though I’m sure it cost a lot to operate and maintain. So he spent 0.1% of his wealth on this! Pretty reasonable budget to spend on something you enjoy IMHO. He also put it to use on some exploratory missions, rescue mission etc.
incone123 3y ago
I don't think of every PhD barista as upper class at all. Holding a doctorate is at the upper end of academic attainment. Someone without even an undergraduate degree but who inherited wealth is not going to see that barista as their social peer.
- science4sail 3y ago
  I think that you missed OP's argument - they're arguing that "wealth" and "social class" are orthogonal. Neither of the two would see each other as their social peer since they have neither wealth nor class in common. * PhD barista: Low wealth, high class * High-school educated trust fund baby: High wealth, low class This sort of framing does seem very medieval though - I get mental images of rich merchants and indebted aristocrats when reading it.
  - incone123 3y ago
    No, I'm disagreeing with their argument and saying social class is not the same thing as academic attainment. To return to the topic of the article, a limo is (was) a means of signalling wealth. You cannot tell from the outside if the person riding in it has inherited their wealth or earned it from monetising their PhD. But the world changed and now you can see teenagers from working class families able to afford to rent one for the high school prom, or 20-somethings for a stag night.
kenjackson 3y ago
This seems very inconsistent with my experience. I tend to find most people are the same, it really just is a matter of how much money you have to get what you want and what impresses your peer group.
thechao 3y ago
Which set of studies did you use for this summary of the condition of 8 billion people? I know a broad swathe of people across the whole wealth spectrum, and none of them fit your thesis. I guess some say "anecdata" others say "anecdata"?
whitemary 3y ago
What do you think class is? Class is determined by one's role in society. Working people are working class, and Donald Trump is not one of them. Owning people are "owning class" also called "bourgeoise" and Donald Trump is one of them. "Lower class" and "upper class" are nonsense Americanisms.
- kcatskcolbdi 3y ago
  I think it's reasonable to assume one's "role in society" can extend beyond their economic utilization.
  - whitemary 3y ago
    It can, but it's always predominated by their social relationship to the material means of production, which makes that relationship the primary determinant of their role in reproducing society. As such, one who sells their labor for a wage has a role that is most fundamentally different to that of one who controls (owns) the material means necessary to convert that labor into value.
- zamnos 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure they're not uniquely Americanisms, and thatwe got those from the old country, where there was the landed gentry and literal lords and kings and queens in the upper class, with peasants, serfs, in the lower classes. It wasn't until the French grew fed up with the system that it underwent a revolutionary change. There's still a House of Lords (upper class) and a House of Commons (lower class) in the UK.
corbulo 3y ago
"Trump is <thing I look down upon>" but you inadvertently put a guy who was born into wealth in the same economic category as people who were born poor. Under what semantic regime is this possible? Lol

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago

I would disagree that the upper class are not swayed by identity markers like gender. There is plenty of sway happening in the upper class, specifically on assessing peers and concerning class pooling (especially among the upper class nonwhite in a majority white country). There’s also plenty of appearances for gender markers— fatness is low class.

temp2022account 3y ago
> There is plenty of sway happening in the upper class I mean my anecdata says it _looks_like_ there is plenty of sway - the end goal of course is as always distraction from useful information that can be used for planning

doubleg72 3y ago

You hit the nail on the head.

xeromal 3y ago

I think I generally agree with your sentiment but how are mega yatchs explained? They're not a practical choice because there's more rooms and resources on it then is humanly possible to consume either with friends or by yourself. They are only available to the mega mega rich. What drives a mega wealthy person to choose a yacht

david-gpu 3y ago
> What drives a mega wealthy person to choose a [mega] yacht Private jets allow them traveling without the inconvenience of other people. Mega yatchs allow them having a private hotel that follows them as they travel. A mega wealthy person has a busy schedule meeting with other elites, and they will often want to do that with maximum comfort and privacy. As long as the schedule isn't too tight, their crew can guarantee that the yatch will be there for them when they arrive, without the risk of having to see or be seen by lesser people. The fact that the immense majority of people can't do the same is just the icing on the cake.
- defrost 3y ago
  Having a fancy floating house boat is strictly the small beer end of mega yachts for the ultra wealthy. Paul Allen's Octopus was so much more: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(yacht) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(yacht) [2] https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/editorial-features/iconic-yachts-octopus https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/editorial-features/...
  - onos 3y ago
    This is an interesting example. The wiki said he was worth $200B at his death, while his boat cost $200M when built. When he died it sold for 230M. So in a sense it was an asset, in that it did not depreciate (ignoring inflation). Though I’m sure it cost a lot to operate and maintain. So he spent 0.1% of his wealth on this! Pretty reasonable budget to spend on something you enjoy IMHO. He also put it to use on some exploratory missions, rescue mission etc.

incone123 3y ago

I don't think of every PhD barista as upper class at all. Holding a doctorate is at the upper end of academic attainment. Someone without even an undergraduate degree but who inherited wealth is not going to see that barista as their social peer.

science4sail 3y ago
I think that you missed OP's argument - they're arguing that "wealth" and "social class" are orthogonal. Neither of the two would see each other as their social peer since they have neither wealth nor class in common. * PhD barista: Low wealth, high class * High-school educated trust fund baby: High wealth, low class This sort of framing does seem very medieval though - I get mental images of rich merchants and indebted aristocrats when reading it.
- incone123 3y ago
  No, I'm disagreeing with their argument and saying social class is not the same thing as academic attainment. To return to the topic of the article, a limo is (was) a means of signalling wealth. You cannot tell from the outside if the person riding in it has inherited their wealth or earned it from monetising their PhD. But the world changed and now you can see teenagers from working class families able to afford to rent one for the high school prom, or 20-somethings for a stag night.

kenjackson 3y ago

This seems very inconsistent with my experience. I tend to find most people are the same, it really just is a matter of how much money you have to get what you want and what impresses your peer group.

thechao 3y ago

Which set of studies did you use for this summary of the condition of 8 billion people? I know a broad swathe of people across the whole wealth spectrum, and none of them fit your thesis. I guess some say "anecdata" others say "anecdata"?

whitemary 3y ago

What do you think class is? Class is determined by one's role in society. Working people are working class, and Donald Trump is not one of them. Owning people are "owning class" also called "bourgeoise" and Donald Trump is one of them. "Lower class" and "upper class" are nonsense Americanisms.

kcatskcolbdi 3y ago
I think it's reasonable to assume one's "role in society" can extend beyond their economic utilization.
- whitemary 3y ago
  It can, but it's always predominated by their social relationship to the material means of production, which makes that relationship the primary determinant of their role in reproducing society. As such, one who sells their labor for a wage has a role that is most fundamentally different to that of one who controls (owns) the material means necessary to convert that labor into value.
zamnos 3y ago
I'm pretty sure they're not uniquely Americanisms, and thatwe got those from the old country, where there was the landed gentry and literal lords and kings and queens in the upper class, with peasants, serfs, in the lower classes. It wasn't until the French grew fed up with the system that it underwent a revolutionary change. There's still a House of Lords (upper class) and a House of Commons (lower class) in the UK.

corbulo 3y ago

"Trump is <thing I look down upon>" but you inadvertently put a guy who was born into wealth in the same economic category as people who were born poor. Under what semantic regime is this possible? Lol