He published White Collar in 1951 and The Power Elite in 1956. In these books he saw the new middle class as affluent but without purpose and cut off from its Calvinist past, from taking pride in craftsmanship. In White Collar, he seemed to bemoan the decline of the rugged American individualist and the growing frustration of the new America. He viewed history as a constant collision between competing forces that vied for power.
