Do You Care How You Spend Your Time? Are You Part of the Aspirational Class?
For most of the 20th century, social scientists divided society into four main groups: the poor, the working class, the middle class, and the leisure class. They were blunt categories, but they generally worked, and they were divided according to that most common sorting mechanism: money.
As you moved up the ladder, your position was mostly made obvious by your consumption. The higher rungs on the ladder were occupied by people who spent more money on visibly expensive things - huge houses, fancy cars, designer clothing, etc.
And then came the Great Recession.
The economy imploded in 2008, and what emerged afterward was a different beast altogether. Employment patterns shifted (hello, gig economy), but spending patterns shifted, too--at least among some groups. It turns out that while middle class consumption more or less went back to the same--i.e., focusing most of their spending on visible consumption like cars--wealthier families shifted their spending to less visible things that give them more stability and flexibility, such as education, retirement plans, and health care. In fact, in 2014, the top one percent spent 860 percent more than the national average on education.
A new group started to emerge. They bought organic produce, took up yoga and meditation, stopped using disposable plastic food containers, took their kids to enriching cultural events, and consumed edgy, thought-provoking books and TV shows and podcasts.
Social scientists are starting to call this new group the “aspirational class.” They’re defined not so much by how they spend their money, but by what they spend it on and why. What we thought was most interesting about research into this group is the shift in focus that reflected values and priorities were shifting, too.
Information, Not Wealth, is the Barrier to Entry
In a piece she wrote for Philonomist, Paloma Soria-Brown argues that one of the key features of this new aspirational class is that the barrier to entry is different from the old classes defined by money. As she puts it:
The aspirational class distinguishes itself by taking informed decisions. It’s the cost of information, not objects, that forms this barrier. In other words, it’s not about being able to afford almond milk, it’s about knowing its nutritional value, or where to find it, or why it’s better for the environment… Not knowing these things is tantamount to exclusion.
This group isn’t so much defined by how much money they have but by what they choose to spend their money and their time on, and they can only make the “right” decisions if they are well-informed. That’s because they value making environmentally friendly and socially responsible choices. It can take a lot of work, research and time to do that.
Take, for example, trying to buy ethical fashion. Is it ethical if your t-shirt is made of organic cotton, but still sewn in unsafe working conditions for a pittance? What about if it’s made in Los Angeles by unionized employees who are paid a living wage, but the fabric comes from a factory that uses harsh chemical treatment processes that pollute a nearby river? Does it count if the company buys carbon offsets? What if it’s fur, but it’s vintage?
Every question leads to more questions, which requires more research, which requires more literacy. You need familiarity with the internet, an ability to locate sources and gauge the reliability of those sources, and a certain comfort level with sifting through and weighing large amounts of information.
How You Spend Your Time is Now the Key Question
Between the amount of work required to know how to make the “right” decisions and the amount of work required to follow through on those decisions (like going to the farmer’s market to buy organic, local produce on a Saturday morning instead of just hitting your local supermarket on the way home after work one evening), it’s clear that the real issue here is time.
Before, what you consumed was the ultimate question. For members of this new group, though, the issue is trickier: it’s not just what you consume, but when, where, and how. In other words: it’s about how you choose to spend your time, who you spend it with, and who sees you spending it.
As the old saying goes, though, time is money--so is this really that much of a cultural change after all? Or is it just the same old social classes in a new, organic cotton outfit?
Have you ever thought about what social group you might fit into? Does this description of the aspirational class sound familiar? Drop us a note.
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