sciatrix

good point. and it's probably related to the story of immigrant America, and starting with a clean slate, and the idea that you can leave the old elites behind (to varying success depending on the group -- tangentially i've been meaning to share a couple of posts on hindu casteism surviving in the usa), but stratification inevitably happens anyway, so the american set of cultural markers are still mostly 'achievable' things you can do in one generation. now that more people are making less, that chips away at income being a proxy indicator, so the other capital sources are made more apparent.