Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There

In the class structure of Smart America, meritocrats occupy an important level. Above them sit the always-getting-richer very rich, whom they regard with loathing and envy, and at whom they direct a continuous barrage of critical fire. Most of the books and columns and gossip aimed at the 1 percent come from people just a few percentage points belo

The new knowledge economy created a new class of Americans: men and women with college degrees (at the very least), skilled with symbols and numbers, salaried professionals in information technology, scientific research, design, management consulting, the upper civil service, financial analysis, medicine, law, journalism, the arts, higher education

Upper-middle class professionals center their tastes around discovery of interesting and superior goods.

As I browsed various online forums trying to learn about college, I came across a book published in 1983 with an intriguing title: Class: A Guide Through the American Status System by Paul Fussell. I bought a copy and discovered a new lens to understand education. The book claimed that the criteria we use to define the tiers of the social hierarchy

Here is where culture enters the picture. I mean“culture” in its anthropological rather than artisticsense. What values and practices can hold people to-gether as the institutions in which they live fragment? My generation suffered from a want of imagination inanswering this question, in advancing the virtues ofsmall-scale community. Co