One of the things this country was founded on was the belief that the class you were born into is not the one you have to stay in. Anyone who is a lover of English lit will recognize the way we Americans have tried to whitewash the idea of a class structure. When I read Jane Austen or Elizabeth Gaskell or George Elliot, I understand the stilted way such a rigid class structure can suck the life out of a dynamic society (and there is a reason why the best writers on class are women, they only had one way of changing their fortunes- through marriage).

Our entire national identity is built on the idea that you can improve your lot in life with hard work and education. The American dream of homeownership is a big, rare idea in the world. In many of the countries where our immigrants come from, including the England of our founding fathers, the only people who owned their own homes were the very rich and the nobility. To have land is to have a thing of increasing value that can be passed down to children. Property ownership creates the middle class in this country. It is one of the few sure thing investments that