when people recognize the actual sources of their privilege is they become a little more humble and they are more willing to help other people, more willing to invest in the future

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22673605/upper-middle-class-meritocracy-matthew-stewart

America’s upper-middle class works more, optimizes their kids, and is miserable.

One of the things you write about in the book is how much this 9.9 percent are willing to invest in their children — in nannies, in schools, in extracurriculars. Where does this pressure come from, this urge people have to make their kids the best?

I think the driving motivation is fear, and I think that fear is well-grounded. People intuit that in this meritocratic game, the odds are getting increasingly long of succeeding. They work very hard to stack the odds in their kids’ favor, but they know as the odds get longer, they may not succeed.

That’s coupled with another one of the traits of this class, which is a lack of imagination. The source of the fear is also this inability to imagine a life that doesn’t involve getting these high-status credentials and having a high-status occupation. This life plan looks good, and it certainly looked good in the past when the odds were more sensible. But it’s not a great deal. It’s something that isn’t just harmful to the people who don’t make it, it’s also harmful to the people who get involved and do make it, in some sense.

What follows when people recognize the actual sources of their privilege is they become a little more humble and they are more willing to help other people, more willing to invest in the future. For me, one of the most distressing statistics is that the richer people get, the less they believe in publicly supported child care. It’s not that they don’t want their taxes to go to pay for child care, it’s that they’ve internalized this idea that everyone can do this, everyone can raise their own child or just hire a nanny. “Let them hire a nanny” is the new “let them eat cake.” It just shows how this incredibly virtuous, super-well-educated class becomes oblivious to the basis of its own existence. 

A new book by philosopher Matthew Stewart (no relation), The 9.9 percent: The New Aristocracy That Is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture.