White Collar World

Nearly sixty years after it was first published, C. Wright Mills's White Collar still offers one of the most comprehensive and accurate descriptions of America's Middle Class and the global consumer society that was created in its image. Below is the opening paragraph, first published on January 1, 1951.

"The white-collar people slipped quietly into modern society. Whatever history they have had is a history without events; whatever common interests they have do not lead to unity; whatever future they have will not be of their own making. If they aspire at all it is to a middle course, at a time when no middle course is available, and hence to an illusory course in an imaginary society. Internally, they are split, fragmented; externally, they are dependent on larger forces. Even if they gained the will to act, their actions, being unorganized, would be less a movement than a tangle of unconnected contests. As a group, they do not threaten anyone; as individuals, they do not practice an independent way of life."