Explore "White Collar" by C. Wright Mills on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The old middle classes are still the chief anchors of the old American way, and the old way is still strong. Yet American history of the last century often seems to be a series of mishaps for the independent man. Whatever occasional victories he may have won, this man has been fighting against the main drift of a new society; even his victories have turned out to be illusory or temporary.
The economic tensions that developed in the world of the small entrepreneur and took political shape as this world was being destroyed were not between classes with and without property. That conflict was distracted by another, which has determined the course of U. S. politics: Until very recently, political issues have been fought between holders of small property, mainly rural, and holders of large property, mainly industrial and financial. While all the people were not owners, there were too many who thought they soon would be to fight politically against the institution of property itself. Politics was sidetracked into a fight between various sizes and types of property, while more and more of the population had no property of any size or type, and increasingly no chance to get any.