Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Resort Report: Being Nouveau Riche is Terribly Out of Style This Year

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Resort Report: Being Nouveau Riche is Terribly Out of Style This Year

by Jamie Johnson from Vanity Fair.

It is time for our Saturday visit to the lives of the rich in America. Jamie Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, offers us once again a brief glimpse of what their lives are like so that we may better understand those who rule over us.

In a country which pretends that everyone is "middle class", it is rather ironic that in actuality Americans make all kinds of social distinctions. I guess we need to maintain our egalitarian, democratic myths in order to keep from revolting.

But we are, indeed, a class structured society. To illustrate this point, Johnson explains to us today that even within the rich there are layers of distinctions--primarily two main ones: the old rich and the nouveau riche. He writes:

If there’s one thing that old-fashioned members of resort society fear, it’s the nouveau riche.

If you would like to learn more about the class of people who rule the US, I highly recommend Jamie Johnson's film entitled, "The One Percent". Being of that class, he has rare access to the rich and powerful who otherwise are rather obsessive about avoiding any public exposure.