Explore "White Collar" by C. Wright Mills on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Some of the factors that make for upward mobility or for its decline are long-run, but many are geared to the ups and downs of the economic cycle. The old ideology of success assumed that the structure of opportunity was always expanding: the heights to be gained and the chances of gaining them seemed to increase from one generation to the next and within the lifetime of a man. Moreover, these opportunities were not felt to be threatened by cyclical ups and downs. Virtually everyone could feel lifted upward, both in income and status, because real income generally rose, and because each new immigrant group coming in at the bottom lifted the prestige and jobs of many who had arrived before them. The new ideology of success assumes that the structure of opportunity waxes and wanes within a slump-war-boom economy. Depressions have left heavy traces, noticeable even during war and boom when opportunities to rise become more available.
The shift from an economy behaving according to a theory of linear progress to an economy behaving according to theories of cyclical movement has affected the white-collar strata in two direct economic ways: (I) their income levels, especially in relation to those of wage-workers; and (II) their security of employment, again in relation to wage-workers.