One of the things I loved about the USA when I was young was that we
were a classless society. As I got older I was more realistic; I celebrated
that we were much less of a
class-based society than others around the world.
But in our new Gilded Age we are losing even the appearance of
classlessness.
Today I saw a
cartoon by one of my favorite cartoonists, Jen Sorenson, that illustrates the
new class-stratification. Not long ago Thanksgiving was an almost universal
holiday. Only those who filled the essential jobs in our society—police, nurse,
firemen—worked on that day. Now of course, with Black Friday starting ever
earlier, more and more of the working class are being required to work as if
this holiday were just another day of the week.
Lots of people will be flying this Thanksgiving weekend and have a
front-row seat, if you will, to the increasingly class-tiered airlines. I don’t
fly often, but last summer I went to see family. I bought my ticket four months
in advance and was surprised at how limited the seat choices were. When I was
waiting to board my first flight I learned the reason: the airlines are now selling
access to aisle seats, selling the right to board early to get first-crack at
the overhead bins, etc. As the gate attendant called off the boarding zones I
realized I was in the “brown” group, one of the pitiful povs who boarded last
(nod to SouthPark).
