According to the NYTimes version of popular opinion, most people would say that I'm rich. And considering what I used to think of somebody in my position, I would have been one of those people. But I don't believe it.
I'd like to think of myself as one of The Slice, the talented segment of society who, by their work, keep actual rich people rich. So let me elaborate a bit about my Peasant Theory while I'm keeping this stuff in mind.
The Origins of the Peasant Theory
I originated the Peasant Theory thinking about what Americans would do if the lights went out. It was also part and parcel of my observation as an emergent minority who has made the best of class mobility over the course of my life. What does the Average American expect? What does he have a right to expect? What would he get if America was not super wealthy, and how big is that gap? One enabling metaphor was that of the National Superhighway System.
It's well known that the Interstates were all built to a specification so that battle tanks could be deployed across the country, if it ever came to that. So our highways are strong and smooth - even though the tanks don't need them to be so smooth. Having a car and the ability to drive across country is a side benefit of the military strategic plan of the powers that be. In fact, an ordinary Joe can afford to buy a cheap motorcycle (as in Easy Rider) and get across country. But that is a privilege of him glomming on to something that wasn't built with him in mind and his ability to cross country owes nothing to his native ability to travel. In short, he's a peasant that doesn't have to think or work hard to cross the country, and were it not for the strategic infrastructure of America, the military superpower, he would be stuck in his hometown. Remember that battle tanks don't need highways at all, let alone superhighways. They'd get along fine with dirt roads or no roads, but Fonda's chopper would get nowhere.
So I started to think about this phenomenon in all parallels for emergent classes of Americans. What can we expect in America that we couldn't expect elsewhere and what politics is considered legitimate, what culture is considered legitimate, what education is considered legitimate that is not actually self-sustaining but a consequence of the fact of America's power? In other words what is the difference between a peasant and a free man? What must the free man know and do for himself that the peasant doesn't bother with?
This is a view of society and of mankind that exists independently of our traditional measures of socio-economic class. And it is in this way that I seek to understand people throughout history - with specific regard to their Foucaultian relationship to regimes of power and truth. Are we really free, or are we merely riding in the comfortable belly of the beast? For me, the best way to make the distinction is to consider how people make themselves useful to the powers that be. This is consistent with feudal hierarchies going back throughout history. And what I have concluded is that there is the Slice in every society, just as there are sovereign powers and peasants in every society. What may become absolutely fascinating is whether the Slice can become autonomous. But let's leave that discussion for another day.
Class in America
When I look at the standard definitions of class I have basically started with a compressed version for black Americans. These are from top to bottom {Hill, Burbs, Hood, Ghetto, Projects/Sticks} It was conveniently five, but there's probably enough reason to split Projects and Sticks into their own separate categories. My upbringing was in the Hood, in the shadow of the Hill, but with ample distance from the Ghetto. I think I live in the Burbs, but perhaps I live on the Hill considering the priceyness of this particular Burb. By the way, I've always considered $300,000 to be rich. In my mind you make that kind of money not just being a doctor, lawyer or businessman, but a *good* doctor, lawywer or businessman. Be all that as it may (and not so crucially important) these follow a kind of 'geography / demographics as destiny' sort of thinking that was useful in my investigations of redlining (with the subheader 'American Apartheid' c.f. Massey & Denton) and my own national search for the right place to raise my family. It also played along the dialogs of 'mentality' for those interminable internecine discussions about proper blackness.
The larger picture was not incedentally part of the rumnations of comedian Chris Rock who spoke about the difference between 'rich' and 'wealthy', and of course by Dave Chapelle from whose comic bit the title of this essay comes. So from that perspective, the top down view of all of America is {Wealthy, Rich, MiddleClass, Poor, Indigent}. What's most important about this selection is that I think of it directly in terms of the capacity of an individual of one class to assist a member of another, it is my rule of Each One Teach One.
The rule works like this. If you are wealthy, you can move someone from the middle class into the rich class. But it is unlikely, without threatening your own position that you can make someone rich wealthy. Similarly and pointedly at liberal politics, if you are middle class, you can make someone who is indigent poor, but you can't make someone who is poor middle class without threating your own position. Similarly if you are rich you can make someone poor middle class. These are, in my mind, hard and fast economic laws - and like the speed of light, they are regularly abused in fantasy fiction but are never broken in reality.
Weath and Freedom
Let's start with rich - because it is the baseline of freedom looking at the high side of Boyd's Razor. (If you want to be free, there are two ways you can do so, you can be rich or you can reduce your needs to zero). I'll deal with the low side later. A rich man is free, and he will remain free so long as the powers that be respect his freedom. A rich man must defend his riches, he must have some skill in that regard no matter how he acquired them. But the most important aspect of riches are that they enable freedom in the civilized world. A rich man can employ others to assist him in accomplishing anything he desires - there are no basic things he cannot afford. Essentially, a rich man can fund his own destiny. I use such vague terms because I'm not trying to think in terms of affluence in the context of a consumer society, but in terms of the broad and general affairs of man. What can a man who is not oppressed do? What might he want to do with his freedom? Whether such things are wise or foolish, the free man is not constrained by his own lack of financial wherewithal.
Wealth and Work
The inspirational thought presaging this essay was the idea that if I am to be considered 'rich', which I don't think I am, there has got to be two kinds. Working rich and idle rich, and I am most definitely in the former category. The same can be considered, to a lesser defining degree of the working and idle wealthy. But I suspect that the idle wealthy tend to use a bit less of the Slice than the working wealthy. The business of the world, it seems to me, is more dependent on the machinations of the wealthy whether they work or not. The Slice are the enablers, the demiurges of human affairs. I think much more depends upon their moral decisions - to the extent that they are to offer their services for the various masters they might have.
So there it is, basically.
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