Sins of the Overclass: The Next American Nation

One of the most useful things intellectuals can do is to invent a term or phrase that flood-lights a new social situation. Society is constantly throwing up problems that are too diffuse and too complex to grasp until someone comes up with a short, snappy way of describing what is going on—one that, as soon as it is heard, strikes one as exactly right. Marx’s term “reserve army of the unemployed” spoke volumes, even to those who had not read the books in which it was first used.

Michael Lind, a young ex-conservative, has introduced the term “overclass” into our political vocabulary. This word has quickly come into extensive use, and has been very helpful in defining the central problem that America ...