ABSTRACT
In the real world, the public perception of their positions was very much on the minds of economic and social elites. Historically, the emergence of inequality structures has always been followed by the growth of systems of legitimation and social control. In modern societies, "cultural capital" derived from social status such as the prestige rankings of "elite" universities create self-reinforcing effects for the PhD and grant market. Ideological notions of individual achievement and mobility, anathema to static pre-industrial societies, were now extended to the worker. Self-improvement was integrated into labor markets portrayed as hierarchical occupational structures waiting for workers with commensurate ambition and skill. Workers could contract with different employers, and changing economic conditions could rapidly increase or reduce the demand for labor. These structural changes found their ideological reflection in a more flexible work ethic, generic concepts of authority and compliance, and in the discovery of the worker as a consumer.
