Kendall, Diana. Members Only: Elite Clubs and the Process of Exclusion.

Friedman, Barry D.

Kendall, Diana. Members Only: Elite Clubs and the Process of Exclusion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008. 191 pages. Cloth, $80; paper, $25.95.

This study of elite city, country, and golf clubs by Diana Kendall, professor of sociology at Baylor University, adds to the literature about such institutions by reporting on primary sources and survey data pertaining to Texas's clubs. (In using the term "elite," Kendall mostly refers to extremely wealthy families whose fortune is "Old Money" and constitute the "Old Guard," as opposed to families whose accumulation of wealth is relatively recent. I will use the term "elite" similarly.)

Kendall's work answers three key questions about these clubs. First, why do elites need to establish and operate such organizations? They need these organizations for several reasons: Like other consumers, elites need a place to spend their money. Every aspect of membership is, in fact, unspeakably expensive. The initiation fee typically runs from the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Annual membership fees generally exceed $10,000. Other pay-as-you-go services, such as having dinner and drinks or playing a round of golf, result in charges posted to the member's account and billed at the end of the month. A spectacular spending spree results. Employees are guided by the slogan: "The Answer Is Yes, What Is Your Question?" (Private Club Associates, quoted on p. 165). A member may host a party at the club's facility for another enormous fee. Clearly, the rule of this extravagance is that, if you have to ask what any of this costs, you cannot afford any of it, and so you do not belong anywhere nearby.

Another factor that explains the establishment of these clubs is that members crave affirmation of their social status. As Kendall observes, "Although many club members have vast and ever-growing amounts of economic capital, they find that members-only clubs provide them with something more: a unique sense of personal accomplishment and high-prestigious group identity ('I am even more important because I belong to this club!')" (p. 158). London's elite clubs, which the founders of American clubs used as models, arranged for members to imitate the lives of Britain's royal family. At the American clubs' elegant balls and debutante cotillions, some members are honored as "king," "queen" or "princess" and decked out in robes and crowns. If club members do not emulate royals, they may take the titles of aristocracy and high-ranking officialdom: Some call themselves "knights," "lords," "ladies" or "lord chancellor." Officers of Austin's Admirals Club have the singular audacity to refer to themselves and fellow members as "Admiral" So-and-So in the club's documents and publications. In short, club membership reassures elites that not only do they own copious amounts of wealth but, more importantly, they genuinely deserve it.

The clubs also indulge the desire of elites for separation from society's inferior members. In their closed organizations, they do not need to endure the unpleasant sight of commoners acting distastefully. Dress codes assure members that they will not have to struggle to digest their epicurean meals while the clueless parade around them in T-shirts and shorts. A member can bring his children to the club and be comforted by the prospect that his offspring will socialize with the offspring of equally cultured elites rather than with bad influences--ideally with the eventual outcome of marriages between well-bred brides and grooms.

Elites find that, by their association with other elites in these closed organizations, they enjoy a bond of friendship in which all look out for the welfare of the others. "The unwritten rule of the upper class," Kendall explains, is, "'You watch my back, and I'll watch yours'" (p. 126). An asset known as "social capital" can be accrued, so that members of elite clubs can "expect that if they cooperate with other members, they will have reciprocal benefits and will not be exploited or defrauded by other members" (p. 3).

Second, how does the segregation of the elites and the discriminatory exclusion of others perpetuate elite advantage and create disadvantages for the excluded? Many events at elite clubs are designed to provide members with access to influential policymakers of government and industry, with opportunities to foster the rise of up-and-coming leaders (who, therefore, will have a debt to repay when they realize their aspirations), and with speeches and lectures about the critical issues of the day. Kendall quotes one Texas club member who declared, "...[T]he campaign trail runs right through the Headliners and Austin Clubs" (p. 121). By this process, members amass "political capital." The members' children who are regularly immersed in these discussions of how movers and shakers change the community, the nation, and the world are socialized to set their course to become the next generation of elected officials, public policymakers, and captains of industry. Elites also use these clubs as instruments of "sponsored mobility"--the process by which the eligibility of outsiders to be admitted into the privileged class is determined and controlled.

While consequential and profitable transactions that affect the distribution of society's resources are made in a subtle but still influential manner within elite clubs, women and members of minority groups are shut out; lucrative business deals are made and fateful government programs are planned in their absence. Lawsuits filed by black and female plaintiffs have had limited success, as the U.S. Supreme Court--in such cases as Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609 (1984)--has accepted the private clubs' claims to freedom of association that exempt them from the public-accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Kendall writes, "... [T]he heightened awareness that comes from associating closely with political elites helps other privileged people know where to look for key issues and what to do about national and international concerns as they relate to their own business and professional interests" (p. 121). He adds that "[n]onmembers who do not possess [the elites'] high-grade business, political, and social ties are at a distinct disadvantage if they have to compete with club members who understand each other's game strategies" (p. 161).

Third, what benefits spill over from the existence of elite clubs to nonelites? The massive spending that the clubs' existence incites generates economic benefits for members of inferior socioeconomic classes. The clubs necessitate the creation of year-'round and seasonal employment opportunities. Many of these jobs require a level of skill, judgment, and discretion that justifies salaries that create comfortable lifestyles and careers, even for black employees who are racially ineligible for actual membership.

The clubs' payrolls and their purchases of goods and services contribute to the economies of their surrounding communities. The cumulative payroll of all U.S. elite clubs undoubtedly runs to the tens of billions of dollars, and their purchases run to the tens of billions of dollars as well. The clubs pay another billion dollars or more in local, state, and federal taxes. In addition, charitable activities operated by the clubs or conducted by members in the clubs' facilities generate at least another billion dollars in donations to charitable institutions.

Those who have studied these elite organizations have drawn internally contradictory conclusions about their impact on society. Whereas they ennoble and empower elites, they dispirit and humiliate the excluded and perpetuate class differences on the basis of the inequitable distribution of wealth and influence. The development of a confident, well-trained leadership class and the spillover economic benefits that these clubs provide to employees and communities have some value to society--assuming, of course, that the rest of us would never be able to pick up the slack if the elites refrained from favoring us with their skillful domination of the systems that produce happiness and prosperity.

Barry D. Friedman, Ph.D.

Professor of Political Science

North Georgia College & State University

Dahlonega, Georgia