I'm three years late in reading David Brooks' book BOBO’s in Paradise.
It’s great reading. BOBO’s are all around us.
My precis is: Brooks examines the meritocratic generation that succeeded the hereditary elite of America, because great Universities used the SAT scores for admission starting in the early 1950s. That change in admissions created the meritocratic elite that now runs America.
The new meritocratic elite are Brooks' BOBOS, Bourgeois Bohemians. They (we) make a lot of money because they have credentials up the gazoo and because they have generally been the well behaved kids who developed the Protestant work ethic by the time they were 16 years old. They have no hereditary qualifications and no sense of being an elite. They consequently costume themselves as Bohemians. They wear informal clothes, spend their money on eco-tours and live in remodeled lofts in the Mission district. Brooks describes them vividly and humorously.
The book is the current version of C. Wright Mills' Power Elite.