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The Status Seekers The Status Seekers An Exploration of Class Behaviour in America VANCE PACKARD LONGMANS LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO LTD 6 & 7 CLIFFORD STREET, LONDON WI THIBAULT HOUSE, THIBAULT SQUARE, CAPE TOWN 605-611 LONSDALE STREET, MELBOURNE C1 443 LOCKHART ROAD, HONG KONG ACCRA, AUCKLAND, IBADAN KINGSTON (JAMAICA), KUALA LUMPUR LAHORE, NAIROBI, SALISBURY (RHODESIA) LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO INC 119 WEST 40TH STREET, NEW YORK 18 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO 20 CRANFIELD ROAD, TORONTO 16 ORIENT LONGMANS PRIVATE LTD CALCUTTA, BOMBAY, MADRAS DELHI, HYDERABAD, DACCA Copyright © 1959 by Vance Packard This edition first published 1960 Second impression 1960 Third impression 1960 Printed in Great Britain by Lowe & Brydone (Printers) Ltd., London, N.W. 10 For Randall, Cynthia, and Vance who will live in this world we are creating. Contents 1. A Classless Society? Part I CHANGES OF STATUS 2. An Upsetting Era 3. Emerging: A Diploma Elite 4. Obstacle Course for Outsiders Part II MARKS OF STATUS 5. Snob Appeal = Today's Home Sweet Home 6. Choosing a Proper Address 7. Totem Poles of Job Prestige 8. Pecking Orders in Corporate Barnyards 9. Shopping for Status 10. Behavior That Gives Us Away 11. The Sociology of Sex Appeal 12. Who Can Be a Friend? 13. Clubs, Lodges, and Blackballs 14. The Long Road from Pentecostal to Episcopal 15. A Sociological Peek into the Voting Booth 16. The Molding of Tender Minds 17. Gauging Social Position Part III STRAINS OF STATUS 18. The Price of Status Striving 19. The Special Status Problems of Jews Part IV TRENDS 20. Nine Pressures Toward a More Rigid Society 21. Exploiting the "Upgrading Urge" Part V IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE 22. Should Status Lines Be Maintained? 23. Problems in Understanding 24. Widening the Gates to Opportunity Reference Notes Index THE STATUS SEEKERS "You!" said the Caterpillar contemptuously. "WHO ARE you?" LEWIS CARROLL, Alice in Wonderland CHAPTER 1 A Classless Society? WHAT HAPPENS TO CLASS DISTINCTIONS AMONG PEOPLE WHEN most of them are enjoying a long period of material abundance? Suppose for example, that most of the people are able to travel about in their own gleaming, sculptured coaches longer than the average living room and powered by the equivalent of several hundred horses. Suppose that they are able to wear a variety of gay- colored apparel made of miraculous fibers. Suppose they can dine on mass-merchandised vichyssoise and watch the wonders of the world through electronic eyes in their own air-conditioned living rooms. In such a climate, do the barriers and humiliating distinctions of social class evaporate? Do anxieties about status—and strivings for evidences of superior status—ease up notably? And do opportunities for leadership roles become more available to all who have natural talent? The recent experience of the people of the United States is instructive. In the early 1940's an era of abundance began which by 1959 had reached proportions fantastic by any past standards. Nearly a half-trillion dollars' worth of goods and services— including television, miracle fibers, and vichyssoise—were being produced. Before this era of fabled plenty began, it was widely assumed that prosperity would eliminate, or greatly reduce, class differences. If everybody could enjoy the good things of life—as defined by mass merchandisers—the meanness of class distinctions would disappear. Such a view seemed reasonable to most of us in those pinched pre-plenty days of the thirties because, then, differences in status were all too plainly visible. You could tell who was who—except for a few genteel poor—by the way people dressed, ate, traveled, and—if they were lucky—by the way they worked. The phrase "poor people" then had an intensely vivid meaning. A banker would never be mistaken for one of his clerks even at one hundred feet. What, actually, has happened to social class in the United States during the recent era of abundance? A number of influential voices have been advising us that whatever social classes we ever had are now indeed withering away. We are being told that the people of our country have achieved unparalleled equality. Listen to some of the voices. Some months ago, a national periodical proclaimed the fact that the United States had recently achieved the "most truly classless society in history." A few weeks later, a publisher hailed the disappearance of the class system in America as "the biggest news of our era." Still later, the director of a market-research organization announced his discovery that America was becoming "one vast middle class." Meanwhile, a corporation in paid advertisements was assuring us that "there are more opportunities in this country than ever before." Whatever else we are, we certainly are the world's most self-proclaimed equalitarian people. The rank-and-file citizens of the nation have generally accepted this view of progress toward equality because it fits with what we would like to believe about ourselves. It coincides with the American Creed and the American Dream, and is deeply imbedded in our folklore. Such a notion unfortunately rests upon a notable lack of perception of the true situation that is developing. Class lines in several areas of our national life appear to be hardening. And status straining has intensified. This prevailing lack of perception of the developing situation might in itself justify a book that attempted to set things straight. I did not, however, undertake this exploration of the present-day American class system—and its status seekers—merely for the delight of poking into an aspect of life we like to pretend does not exist. My purpose was not to hoot at our self-deception—which is too easy to document to be challenging—but rather to try to offer a fresh perspective on our society and on certain disquieting changes which, it seems to me, are taking place within it. The approach of class analysis—looking at Americans through their class behavior, their status striving, their barriers—offers the possibility of seeing our unique and fast-changing society in a new light. Even our institutions, such as schools, clubs, churches, political parties, and, yes, matrimony, take on new meaning. We shall see that the people of the United States have, and are refining, a national class structure with a fascinating variety of status systems within it. These status systems affect a number of intimate areas of our daily lives and have some surprising and preposterous ramifications. At points it will be noted how our class structure now differs from that of other countries. And finally we shall examine several growing areas of cleavage in the American class structure that seem to demand recognition. In particular, I think we should be disturbed by the stratifying tendencies appearing in the places where millions of us work, live, relax, vote, and worship. Since class boundaries are contrary to the American Dream, Americans generally are uncomfortable when the subject of their existence arises. Sociologist August B. Hollingshead of Yale University found that psychiatrists—supposedly uninhibited, open- minded individuals—"tend to react with embarrassment when the question of social class is raised." One responded to a direct question about the social classes in his town of New Haven, Connecticut, by saying, "I don't like to think too much about this." 1 Until recent years, even sociologists had shrunk away from a candid exploration of social class in America. Social classes, they realized, were not supposed to exist. Furthermore, Karl Marx had made class a dirty word. As a result the social scientists, until a few years ago, knew more about the social classes of New Guinea than they did of those in the United States of America. Webster defines status as the "position; rank; standing" of a person. (The word can be pronounced either "stay-tus" or "stat-us.") Although present-day Americans in this era of material abundance are not supposed to put differential labels of social status on fellow citizens, many millions of them do it every day. And their search for appropriate evidences of status for themselves appears to be mounting each year. There is some evidence that wives, generally speaking, tend to be more status conscious than their husbands. The majority of Americans rate acquaintances and are themselves being rated in return. They believe that some people rate somewhere above them, that some others rate somewhere below them, and that still others seem to rate close enough to their own level to permit them to explore the possibility of getting to know them socially without fear of being snubbed or appearing to downgrade themselves. When any of us moves into a new neighborhood—and 33,000,000 Americans now do this every year—we are quickly and critically appraised by our new neighbors and business acquaintances before being accepted or rejected for their group. We, in turn, are appraising them and in many cases attempt not to commit what some regard as the horrid error of getting in with the wrong crowd. Furthermore, most of us surround ourselves, wittingly or unwittingly, with status symbols we hope will influence the raters appraising us, and which we hope will help establish some social distance between ourselves and those we consider below us. The vigorous merchandising of goods as status symbols by advertisers is playing a major role in intensifying status consciousness. Others of us, less expert in the nuances of status symbols or more indifferent to them, persist in modes of behavior and in displays of taste that themselves serve as barriers in separating us from the group to which we may secretly aspire. They can keep us in our place. If we aspire to rise in the world but fail to take on the coloration of the group we aspire to—by failing to discard our old status symbols, friends, club memberships, values, behavior patterns, and acquiring new ones esteemed by the higher group— our chances of success are diminished.
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