ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we explore horizontal differentiation in lifestyle practices between the cultural and economic poles of Britain’s elite or “dominant class”. We find that evidence of a capital composition axis is distinctly mixed; while hedonistic recreations have remained consistently more popular among economic elites, there is little evidence of a capital composition divide in the kind of intellectual recreations so central to Bourdieu’s Distinction (1979/1984). Our analysis suggests two tentative explanations for this: First, that the cultural fraction was successful in institutionalising a mode of highbrow elite culture in the early 20th century that was adopted by economic elites, and, second, that Britain’s most powerful educational channels of elite recruitment—public schools and Oxbridge—acted to suppress capital composition differences by inculcating a more synthetic elite identity.
