The Ideology of Affluence

America’s Top Five Percent (Class Series, Essay 7)

“Every class lives by a lie of its own invention.” — José Ortega y Gasset

A New Tier

Every society requires its upper tier to tell a story about itself. The story is not merely ornamentation but necessity: without a narrative of legitimacy, advantage collapses into naked privilege, and privilege invites revolt. In the United States today, that narrative i…