David Brooks, the New York Times idea of a conservative, recently published this piece on ways class distinctions and privilege are preserved:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/o...g-america.html
He makes a pretty good case about how the upper middle class maintains certain advantages, but includes a ham-fisted little story about bringing a friend "with only a high school degree" to a pretentious Italian deli, causing embarrassment over ignorance about terms like "soppressata".
As he should probably have expected, the usual suspects went nuts fixating on that, I think missing much of the point of how certain opportunities can be "hoarded". It's a shame, because I think we function better as a society when we maximize equality of opportunity (not equality of outcome - which is generally a poisonous goal to aim at).
I'm inclined to think, however, that actually having money is much more important than one's cured meats vocabulary as a benchmark of social advantage.