What is evoked for you by the words “ruling class”? For most people, the phrase is likely to conjure images that are distinctly metropolitan — whether associated with the likes of Wall Street and high finance, Greco-Roman architecture in Washington, DC, or the Ivy League institutions attended by many of America’s traditional elite. Almost universally, images like these are the dominant symbols of power and cultural influence in the popular imagination.

But, argues historian Patrick Wyman, the reality of wealth and power in the United States is altogether more banal. In a recent essay for the Atlantic (based on a 2020 piece originally published on Substack), Wyman makes the case for the importance of an entirely different group whose identity and influence are anything but marginal.

In this interview with Jacobin’s Luke Savage, Wyman discusses the issues raised in “American Gentry” and their implications for how we think about wealth and power in American society as a whole.