Contradictions of the New Elite

Starting in the interwar period (between World Wars I and II) and rapidly accelerating in the 1970s, there were shifts to the global economy that radically increased the influence of the “symbolic industries” — science and technology, education, media, law, consulting, administration, finance and nonprofits. People who work in these fields traffic primarily in data, ideas, rhetoric and images instead of physical goods or services. These “symbolic capitalists” are also the Americans who are most likely to self-identify as antiracists, feminists, environmentalists, leftists or “allies” to LGBTQ people. And for good reason.