Inherited wealth and cultural capital are as decisive now as in Balzac’s era

Evidence

With so many children of privilege winning the public’s attention, it felt like society was returning to an explicitly aristocratic age. As French economist Thomas Piketty observed, “Inherited wealth comes close to being as decisive at the beginning of the twenty-first century as it was in the age of Balzac’s Père Goriot [set in 1819].” Beyond financial inheritance, cultural capital—connections, industry fluency, or even an ingrained affability—gave the offspring of elites a decided edge in the crowded media landscape. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 667

Categorization

Category: Connection Points

• XREF: Directly speaks to the reader’s counter-case: if cultural capital (nepo-baby advantage) signals status today, then the era may have a distinct signature Marx is dismissing.
• SEED: Angle: ‘If inherited cultural capital dominates the media landscape today, is that the era’s real signature the omnivore-monoculture thesis misses?’
• ADDENDUM: Relates to the sacrifice/class-stratification theme and the grafting-as-metaphor theme — inherited advantage as a form of social stratification determining who gets to occupy attention.

Related

• Inherited advantage regained nineteenth-century decisiveness at the twenty-first century’s start (similarity 0.91)