"The decline of the old middle classes does not mean that the old U.S. framework of capitalist democracy is broken. But it does mean that the old legitimations of that system no longer move men, and that the institutions under which we live, the framework of our existence, are without enthusiasm. Again, this does not mean that we are in a situation without norms, a situation of anomy, although it is fairly clear that ours is an era of wide moral distress. But moral or ideological consensus is not the only basis for a social order. A network of expediences and conventions, in a framework of power not entirely or firmly legitimated, can hold together a society with high material standards of comfort" (White Collar: The American Middle Classes, 1951, p. 350).