Indeed, many of the corporate titans who dominate the American imagination live by an ideology of individualism that barely masks selfishness and an … - Robert D. Putnam

often within a single school, AP and other advanced courses tend to separate privileged from less privileged kids. Later on, kids from different class backgrounds are increasingly sorted into different colleges: for example, by 2004, kids from the top quarter of families in education and income were 17 times more likely to attend a highly selective college than kids in the bottom quarter.

The bottom line in the political industry is this: Financial capital — the wherewithal for mass marketing — has steadily replaced social capital — that is, grassroots citizen networks — as the coin of the realm.

This geographic polarization was made possible by the growth of suburbs and the expansion of the highway system, which allowed high-income families to move away from low-income neighbors in search of large lots, privacy, parks, and shopping malls. This class-based residential polarization has been accelerated by the growth of the income gap and (ironically) by changes in housing legislation that enabled more affluent minority families to move to the suburbs.