Strong post. I agree. Here's a blog post I wrote to explain the terminology I'm going use next: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/the-3-ladder-sys

Strong post. I agree. Here's a blog post I wrote to explain the terminology I'm going use next: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/the-3-ladder-system-of-social-class-in-the-u-s/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/the-3-ladder-... . The E3's are the ones who end up running corporations, except in ceremonial sinecures and extremely high positions with no accountability, where E2's and E1's will sometimes go. E3 is as high as you can go via work. E2 is the declining national elite ("WASP establishment") that, as you said, is the true upper class and does not value (but disdains) hard work. E1 is an emerging and outright nasty global elite. E1 is more willing to play the corporate game than E2, but an E1 will never attach himself to one corporation. CEOing is a highly-paid E3 job that can ruin your reputation if it goes badly. E1s buy and sell corporate positions, social access, assets and resources; they're too savvy to attach themselves to one company, however. You're not a mismatch for E1 on values if you're a corporate striver, but you'll still never cross that divide. You can't enter E2 or E1 as anyone's subordinate. E2 is inaccessible by wealth (and probably closing up and inaccessible in general at this point) and E1 requires so much wealth to enter it that it will never happen, even on a CEO's salary.