Christopher Jencks: Does He Lack The Courage Of His Convictions?

With the publication of his book, "Inequality," Christopher Jencks became a primary advocate of class culture as the predominant casual factor in social inequality. However, his espousal of the prepotency of class culture was first signalled in his 1968 article "Social Stratification and Higher Education" in which he stated that there are four reasons for unequal social mobility: money, environment, motivation, and genetic inheritance.

In his article he discussed only the first three causes and quickly eliminated the first two as being of minor importance in determining the "college chances" of a student. Jencks becomes convincing when detailing the limited effects money, intelligence, and parental occupation have on a student's "college chances." Of course, he says, they are present but "The role of tuition charges and academic tests in maintaining the middle-class advantage is not as great as many suppose; class differences in motivation probably play the decisive role."

It is in detailing the supreme importance of motivation that Jencks is most interesting. Motivation is seen as a direct result of class culture. Not only are children from the "higher" strata of society expected by society, their families, and, of course, by themselves to go to college, but basic human nature drives one to hold on to what one has so that "...virtually all children from the higher strata have an intense interest in avoiding downward mobility." "Lower" strata children, on the other hand, are not only expected to remain where they are by society, their families, and themselves--they also are not "hungry" for mobility as it seems that "Large numbers of children from the lower social strata have only limited interest in upward mobility..."

Thus, the process of academic selection is largely seen by Jencks as a process of voluntary compliance with implied cultural expectations. Half the total population does not graduate from high school; half the high school graduates do not enter college; half the college students never graduate; and so on--all accomplished, for the overwhelming part, by the students themselves. Of course, the important part nurtured class culture plays in determining "college chances" is never acknowledged by society, for the myth of unlimited opportunity for all plays an important role in maintaining the political, social, and economic status quo. "All this emphasis on voluntarism helps blunt political attacks on the gatekeepers...," for, if the "eased out" students realized the system was rigged against them, they would not accept so easily the unequal distribution of social rewards and privileges based upon "credentials."

However, it is when Jencks moves into his data-less area of politics and conjecture that he falters. Jencks maintains that the selected admission of outstanding members of the lower social strata into the upper ranks of society is not an effective method of preventing revolutionary uprisings from the frustrated ones. "On the contrary," he says, "educated outsiders seem to be the enzymes without which revolution is almost impossible."

Actually, it is highly likely that one's political orientation is possibly the first thing to change in the upwardly mobile. Indeed, if the "anticipatory socialization" that Seymour Lipset and Reinhard Bendix speak of in their book "Social Mobility in Industrial Society" is at work, the political and social orientations of the upwardly mobile begins to change even before they enter the higher strata--which is one of the reasons they do enter the higher strata. Except for the most unusual of an already unusual group, the upwardly mobile are eager to abandon their lower class orientations and, through a subtle process of cultural osmosis, come to completely identify with the new social environment they desire. As the Schoolboys of Barbiana would put it in their book "Letter to a Teacher": "...they are received like brothers by the rich and are soon rewarded with all their defects. The final outcome: 100 per cent daddy's boys."

In addition, investigations into the nature of revolutions indicate that Jencks is totally mistaken in attributing the existence of revolutions to educated refugees from the lower classes. Rather, it seems that the major leaders of past revolutions have been what Max Nomad, a student of revolutions, called "declasse intellectuals"--members of the upper class who have defected. In Crane Brinton's "Anatomy of Revolution"--a study of England's "Glorious Revolution," America's War of Independence, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution--he found in all cases that "an enzyme without which the revolution would have been impossible" was the defection of pedigreed members of the Ruling Class.

A quick survey of this grouping of "declasse intellectuals" would include Karl Marx, the Ph.D. who couldn't find the much-sought-after teaching post; Fidel Castro, the lawyer; Che Guevara, the medical doctor; and Salvadore Allende, the medical doctor.

Having so a-historically disposed of his obstacle, Jencks goes on to explain the "real" reason lower strata members are sometimes allowed into the ranks of the well-to-do: "The real political importance to America of educating such individuals may not have been preventing revolution or radical reform but preserving the internal integrity of established institutions. The management of large corporations or governmental empires, for example, requires leaders who can deal with extremely diverse personalities and social species..." and, of course, the lower class upstarts have "what it takes."

Not only does Jencks present us with nothing except his word that the lower strata would be more likely to produce these leaders than any other strata--especially the higher strata--but his argument seems to fly in the face of the findings quoted by Lipset and Bendix: "The effect of material limitations acts in part so as to narrow the perspective... The socially underprivileged adolescent has seen less, read less, heard about less, has experienced less variety in his environment in general, and is also simply aware of fewer opportunities than the socially privileged young person."

In short, it seems that Jencks is too quickly discarding the all-too-plausible theory that the admission of the most aggressive, the most ambitious among the lower classes into the ranks of the privileged effectively and purposely "lets the steam off" the social cauldron.

Jencks also seems to ignore economic historians when he extols the efforts of the upwardly mobile to expand the economy, thus supplying more absolute luxuries while maintaining relative inequalities. He categorically states: "The pressures for growth tend to come from the upwardly mobile...who hope to create a new parallel (business) elite. The upwardly mobile can do this if, and only if, they can find a way to increase the overall size of the pie..."

I will not argue that the American pie has perhaps been expanding over the last century, but it is yet to be proven that this economic expansion is attributable to, or in spite of the grapplings of the new upwardly mobile business elite. Perhaps Thorstein Veblen had a better understanding of the workings of a capitalist-industrial economy when he detailed the anti-social nature of business. In Veblen's view, business is forced by its basic orientation of profit-seeking into a policy of "sabotage" of production. It must fight against the "inordinate productivity of the machine" by keeping prices high and supply limited. Until more evidence is compiled we must view with suspicion Jencks's belief in the socio-economic beneficence of the "parallel elite."

However, it is in his advocacy of the abolition of the family that Jencks really oversteps himself. After presenting a persuasive argument for a socialist society, Jencks's courage fails him. He has trouble making up his mind whether to opt for socialism, the abolition of the family in favor of a Kibbutz system of child-rearing, or a combination of both. This confusion is not warranted by the facts and arguments Jencks provides. He argues:

Equalizing opportunity, then, turns out to be inextricably tied up with creating a classless society...So long as the distribution of power and privilege among adults remains radically unequal, and so long as some children are raised by adults who have "all the advantages," while others are raised by adults who have all the disadvantages, children will inevitably turn out unequal. This may be partly because parents with time, money and the respect of their fellows can do a better job raising their children than parents who lack these things. But children raised in different circumstances will also require different hopes, expectations, and compulsions...So long as we cling to the family system, efforts to increase the rate of social mobility are likely to have limited impact. Not only that, but their social value is also problematic...If wealth and power remain as unequally distributed between families as they now are, and if child-rearing remains family based, increasing the rate of social mobility substantially could easily be a formula for misery.

Jencks's arguments do not follow the logical one-two pattern he feels they do. While he may believe that a classless society must also be a family-less society, he cannot substantiate that view. If it is true that parents with "different circumstances," with "time, money and the respect of their fellows" will produce children more advantaged than certain other parents, why not deal directly with that problem and equalize the "circumstances?" Why not provide the time and money (the respect will follow) for all parents? If it is true that altered social status also alters patterns of class culture and opportunity--why not alter them?

It would seem, then, that a more equitable distribution of wealth and power among families--i.e. socialism--would eliminate the necessity of abolishing families. It is the courage to declare for this alternative that Jencks finally lacks.

Eric Davin is an educational activist who has mounted two unsuccessful campaigns for a seat on the Cambridge School Committee.