If be interested in the book club. Your description of the Red Bourgeoisie reminded me of Grossman’s Everything Flows when the the recently released prisoner of the gulag meets the person who denounced him as the denouncer is getting into a limo.
Thanks for the thoughtful article. I downloaded McDonell's book and plan to read it soon. Can you recommend any Russian works in a similar vein?
The way you describe him and his writing made me think back to Lewis Lapham, so I asked ChatGPT to summarize Lapham's critiques of the "meritocracy". A lot of parallels!
🎭1. Meritocracy Is a Myth That Masks Inherited Power
"The American faith in meritocracy is a magnificent alibi for privilege."
Lapham argued that the idea of a "level playing field" is a convenient fiction. He believed American elites used meritocratic language—“hard work,” “talent,” “education”—to mask systems of inheritance, social connections, and cultural capital that reproduce privilege across generations.
Elite prep schools and Ivy League colleges, he pointed out, claim to admit based on merit but disproportionately select from the same wealthy families.
Success, in his view, was more about being “born into the right house” than innate ability.
🧳 2. The Ruling Class Has Simply Rebranded Itself
In Money and Class in America, Lapham describes the postwar elite as a new aristocracy disguised as self-made men. While European aristocrats flaunted their inherited status, the American rich pretended to have earned it.
The nouveau riche co-opted the language of merit to make their power seem legitimate.
He noted that “the ruling class... now wears the clothing of egalitarian democracy while arranging the laws to serve its own convenience.”
🧠 3. Elite Education Is a Gatekeeping Mechanism
He relentlessly mocked the Ivy League as an elaborate credentialing system for the upper class.
The purpose of elite education, he said, wasn’t to cultivate intellect but to signal status and provide access to elite networks.
Lapham saw prep schools and Ivies not as meritocratic ladders but as “courts of entry” to an exclusive club.
“The SAT is merely a secret handshake.”
🗣️ 4. The Language of Meritocracy Silences Class Critique
Lapham believed that the American obsession with meritocracy discourages real conversations about inequality.
If the poor are poor because they didn’t try hard enough, then the system doesn’t have to change.
The myth lets the winners moralize their success and blame the losers.
🪞 5. America Worships Winners, Not Virtue
He often mocked the way society confuses wealth with wisdom, success with virtue, and celebrity with credibility.
“Wealth confers prestige, and prestige substitutes for virtue.”
The meritocracy, in this sense, becomes a religion of appearances, not substance.
Yeah I guess I kind of read it as though you were being specific to "now" - But I guess nothing at all in terms of class [traitor] criticism in the past ~30 years. So there's literally nothing? That's interesting. Fiction maybe?
Thanks. So, I cannot find an English version of the title "Generation P" anywhere, but I did notice that it's a title of a chapter in his other book "Babylon" - is that the same thing?
So that's the exact same work in full? If so, thanks. I did some digging that day [I always download or buy a couple books every weekend] and it looked like there was a separate book under that title, and that a shorter chapter of the same name was incorporated into the Homo Zapiens novel.
I'm about halfway through the McDonell book now. Hooked my ebook up to the rowing machine [no I've never yachted or rowed on a real lake] and it's what I thought it would be. Totally the same crust as Lapham. Except more concentrated now.
Ah also, I got the paywall at New Yorker so I had the archive page create a record.
Lapham had cause and effect backwards when he talked about American elite schools. You can go to Exeter and Harvard and you still won’t truly be a member of the 1%. I know plenty of people from upper middle class families who went to Ivy League schools and are still just (barely) upper middle class. Even at a school like Yale the real elites tend to socialize amongst themselves and have their own internal secret societies and arcane sports like squash and polo to make sure no ambitious black woman will ever think she belongs. America’s elite schools have done an excellent job masking America’s real class system by letting a decent number of minorities think they were getting access to the elite world based on merit while the real elites hobknob elsewhere.
India, Pakistan and East Asia it's everywhere. I played every weekend in public university in the US. It's not what I'd call an upper crust sport. If you read the book Evgenia is talking about in the post you'll see some really arcane or at least uncommon stuff like horse skills & riding, sailing, yachting, skulling, lacrosse, languages, and all sorts of stuff most of us have never done. It's that I don't think squash really falls into one of those only rich people categories like the others. It's basically racquetball with a little more strategy.
I suppose a lot of it depends where you come from. Lacrosse was not an uncommon sport where I grew up, we played a version of it at recess in middle school. A lot of middle class people learned to sail on the lake, and you didn't need that much money to ski or snowboard. But no one played squash, there just weren't any courts nearby, so it always seemed like a prep school sport to me.
I'd be interested in a book club. I'd be curious to know what Evgenia makes of the Russian authors who do well in the West - most notably, Vladimir Sorokin. I don't read a word of Russian but, in translation, he reads like another Bret Easton Ellis type with a post-Putin twist. I could be very wrong but don't see it as regards viewing him as a novelist comparable in quality to other Eastern European novelists of roughly the same age - for example, Olga Tokarczuk or László Krasznahorkai.
I’m interested in participating in the book club. It’s a great idea by the way.
The book sounds interesting and I also appreciate your perspective.
The US is definitely not a meritocracy. I fear we’re becoming similar to the post-Soviet Russia you described in your Substack essay. As you have previously written, the American society is already there in a lot of ways.
Interested! But...could it also include books available outside the US (as actual books, I personally just don't want to spend yet more time reading online) ?
I finished McDonell's book tonight. It was an easy read. I don't know I got too much from it on its own, but I can see how it might be a major contrast to the Russian experience after the demise of USSR. Thing is, some of the people he talks about and even quotes in the last part of the book are nouveau riche like the Russian oligarchs and their daughters from the podcast today.
Is there any literature that goes into how these Russian oligarchs that Putin supporters [I am not making judgments just descriptions] talk about him sidelining or disempowering, but who are still super wealthy got their wealth?
Ok I mean like if you watch the movie Triangle of Sadness, how did that one Russian guy or guys like him get the wealth? Were certain communist party people in charge of industries or agencies positioned to some how quickly take control and personalize them to their own financial benefits? That to me would be incredibly fascinating and it's hard to find information about it, maybe because so many American "russia experts" were part of the grift? This would be majorly telling about what might be about to happen here.
If be interested in the book club. Your description of the Red Bourgeoisie reminded me of Grossman’s Everything Flows when the the recently released prisoner of the gulag meets the person who denounced him as the denouncer is getting into a limo.
I also liked your recent mention of Platanov.
Thanks for the thoughtful article. I downloaded McDonell's book and plan to read it soon. Can you recommend any Russian works in a similar vein?
The way you describe him and his writing made me think back to Lewis Lapham, so I asked ChatGPT to summarize Lapham's critiques of the "meritocracy". A lot of parallels!
🎭1. Meritocracy Is a Myth That Masks Inherited Power
"The American faith in meritocracy is a magnificent alibi for privilege."
Lapham argued that the idea of a "level playing field" is a convenient fiction. He believed American elites used meritocratic language—“hard work,” “talent,” “education”—to mask systems of inheritance, social connections, and cultural capital that reproduce privilege across generations.
Elite prep schools and Ivy League colleges, he pointed out, claim to admit based on merit but disproportionately select from the same wealthy families.
Success, in his view, was more about being “born into the right house” than innate ability.
🧳 2. The Ruling Class Has Simply Rebranded Itself
In Money and Class in America, Lapham describes the postwar elite as a new aristocracy disguised as self-made men. While European aristocrats flaunted their inherited status, the American rich pretended to have earned it.
The nouveau riche co-opted the language of merit to make their power seem legitimate.
He noted that “the ruling class... now wears the clothing of egalitarian democracy while arranging the laws to serve its own convenience.”
🧠 3. Elite Education Is a Gatekeeping Mechanism
He relentlessly mocked the Ivy League as an elaborate credentialing system for the upper class.
The purpose of elite education, he said, wasn’t to cultivate intellect but to signal status and provide access to elite networks.
Lapham saw prep schools and Ivies not as meritocratic ladders but as “courts of entry” to an exclusive club.
“The SAT is merely a secret handshake.”
🗣️ 4. The Language of Meritocracy Silences Class Critique
Lapham believed that the American obsession with meritocracy discourages real conversations about inequality.
If the poor are poor because they didn’t try hard enough, then the system doesn’t have to change.
The myth lets the winners moralize their success and blame the losers.
🪞 5. America Worships Winners, Not Virtue
He often mocked the way society confuses wealth with wisdom, success with virtue, and celebrity with credibility.
“Wealth confers prestige, and prestige substitutes for virtue.”
The meritocracy, in this sense, becomes a religion of appearances, not substance.
Did you finish my piece? I do say why books like quiet street don’t exist in Russia.
Yeah I guess I kind of read it as though you were being specific to "now" - But I guess nothing at all in terms of class [traitor] criticism in the past ~30 years. So there's literally nothing? That's interesting. Fiction maybe?
Generation P by Pelevin is the best book about the 90s, he is not a class traitor, but def he is satirical and detached enough
Thanks. So, I cannot find an English version of the title "Generation P" anywhere, but I did notice that it's a title of a chapter in his other book "Babylon" - is that the same thing?
It's widely available in English under the title Homo Zapiens...very good
So that's the exact same work in full? If so, thanks. I did some digging that day [I always download or buy a couple books every weekend] and it looked like there was a separate book under that title, and that a shorter chapter of the same name was incorporated into the Homo Zapiens novel.
Heh! Evgenia's description got me thinking of Lapham, too . . . .
The photographs in this book are likewise taken by one of the wealthy's own, skewering some of their pretensions:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/what-old-money-looks-like-in-america-and-who-pays-for-it
Oh! And book club: si!
I'm about halfway through the McDonell book now. Hooked my ebook up to the rowing machine [no I've never yachted or rowed on a real lake] and it's what I thought it would be. Totally the same crust as Lapham. Except more concentrated now.
Ah also, I got the paywall at New Yorker so I had the archive page create a record.
https://archive.ph/p3bjs
Thanks!
Lapham had cause and effect backwards when he talked about American elite schools. You can go to Exeter and Harvard and you still won’t truly be a member of the 1%. I know plenty of people from upper middle class families who went to Ivy League schools and are still just (barely) upper middle class. Even at a school like Yale the real elites tend to socialize amongst themselves and have their own internal secret societies and arcane sports like squash and polo to make sure no ambitious black woman will ever think she belongs. America’s elite schools have done an excellent job masking America’s real class system by letting a decent number of minorities think they were getting access to the elite world based on merit while the real elites hobknob elsewhere.
Squash isn't exactly arcane.
Well, we certainly didn’t get a lot of opportunities to play squash in New Hampshire public schools.
India, Pakistan and East Asia it's everywhere. I played every weekend in public university in the US. It's not what I'd call an upper crust sport. If you read the book Evgenia is talking about in the post you'll see some really arcane or at least uncommon stuff like horse skills & riding, sailing, yachting, skulling, lacrosse, languages, and all sorts of stuff most of us have never done. It's that I don't think squash really falls into one of those only rich people categories like the others. It's basically racquetball with a little more strategy.
I suppose a lot of it depends where you come from. Lacrosse was not an uncommon sport where I grew up, we played a version of it at recess in middle school. A lot of middle class people learned to sail on the lake, and you didn't need that much money to ski or snowboard. But no one played squash, there just weren't any courts nearby, so it always seemed like a prep school sport to me.
Love your insight, I would be interested in a book club but I went to a state school and don't read fast enough
I'd be interested in a book club. I'd be curious to know what Evgenia makes of the Russian authors who do well in the West - most notably, Vladimir Sorokin. I don't read a word of Russian but, in translation, he reads like another Bret Easton Ellis type with a post-Putin twist. I could be very wrong but don't see it as regards viewing him as a novelist comparable in quality to other Eastern European novelists of roughly the same age - for example, Olga Tokarczuk or László Krasznahorkai.
Interested in the book club. For "fiction" -- Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. For "non-fiction" -- something by Peter Turchin
Yes interested in book club
Hi Eugenia,
I’m interested in participating in the book club. It’s a great idea by the way.
The book sounds interesting and I also appreciate your perspective.
The US is definitely not a meritocracy. I fear we’re becoming similar to the post-Soviet Russia you described in your Substack essay. As you have previously written, the American society is already there in a lot of ways.
As one peruses the New York Times bestseller list, the depiction of the Soviet Writers Union by Bulgakov in The Master and Margarita is conjured.
Interested! But...could it also include books available outside the US (as actual books, I personally just don't want to spend yet more time reading online) ?
I would really love to join the book club
Interested
Both of you get my congratulations for your own respective self-reflections.
When weighing causation, how would each of you prioritize influences?
Where do possible childhood traumas rank in terms of internal motivation?
Do external social, political, or cultural factors have the same punch?
How interwoven are these internal and external factors?
Does looking at our respective backgrounds through the lens of social class help to clarify or muddy any possible insights?
Count me in on any book club.
Interested in the book club too!
I finished McDonell's book tonight. It was an easy read. I don't know I got too much from it on its own, but I can see how it might be a major contrast to the Russian experience after the demise of USSR. Thing is, some of the people he talks about and even quotes in the last part of the book are nouveau riche like the Russian oligarchs and their daughters from the podcast today.
Is there any literature that goes into how these Russian oligarchs that Putin supporters [I am not making judgments just descriptions] talk about him sidelining or disempowering, but who are still super wealthy got their wealth?
Ok I mean like if you watch the movie Triangle of Sadness, how did that one Russian guy or guys like him get the wealth? Were certain communist party people in charge of industries or agencies positioned to some how quickly take control and personalize them to their own financial benefits? That to me would be incredibly fascinating and it's hard to find information about it, maybe because so many American "russia experts" were part of the grift? This would be majorly telling about what might be about to happen here.
Yes, those communist apparatchiks who managed to privatize the industries/factories they managed are called “red directors”
It’s been written about
So how does this book club work? I like the idea. Book looks to be quite interesting, too.