In other words, in where and how it lives, in what it consumes and where it shops, the ruling class pays through the nose to experience America as if the calendar still read 1955—and a particularly upscale 1955 at that. In its professional life, it works hard to make sure that you can’t afford to live the same way. What Americans of all classes—admittedly, at varying degrees of elegance—could enjoy throughout most of the twentieth century is now available only to the rich, whose ethos is: identical pods, box stores, processed junk, and drive-thrus for you but not for us.
