America has no aristocracy in the hereditary sense of the
word. This is something which de Tocqueville acknowledged way back in the l8th
Century when he wrote Democracy in America. Another Frenchman Bernard-Henri Levy updated de Tocqueville
several years back recording his travels around the country in The Atlantic to mark the bicentennial of de Tocqueville’s journey. In America being upper class is simply a matter of having money and, as de Tocqueville noted, in America today’s rich can easily be tomorrow’s paupers. The passage from
riches to rags is a sad story that never ceases to provide fodder for the
tabloids. Realizing that their status lies on shaky ground, the
American upper class is characterized less by noblesse oblige than apologia pro
vita sua. Perhaps due to the insecurity associated with their status and how
merit orientated American society tends to be, America’s rich rarely pull rank and are constantly trying to affirm their kinship with their fellow man. The
American upper class are friends with the doormen of the high rises in which
they live while a
Paraguayan who still holds Stroessner in high esteem, or a member of the
Spanish elite with fascist leanings, who still looks back fondly on Franco, will
likely treat the servants like servants. Nowhere is this more evidenced than
in Manhattan where you have wealthy people of all nationalities, real
aristocrats otherwise known as Eurotrash, the distaff of whom won’t be seen in public without their Carolina Herrera outfits, living with self-made rags to riches types
in luxurious Park Avenue co-ops. Warren Buffet epitomizes the best qualities of
the American upper class. He still lives unpretentiously in the Omaha house he purchased over fifty years ago. And he sports an ethic based on the pragmatic notions of The Intelligent Investor. Benjamin Graham's famed tome, with its emphasis on
value, provides the no nonsense framework for his investment philosophy.
