But then I am amazed at how precarious middle-class people feel their own culture to be.
In the autumn of 2008, with the economy in free fall, it was easy to suppose that he was falling, too, from a precarious middle-class existence into an underworld of criminality.
The basic political problem in Haiti, from colonial through post-colonial to neo-colonial times, has always been much the same: how can a tiny and precarious ruling class secure its property and privileges in the face of mass destitution and resentment?
The precarious middle class.
It treats no better the precarious middle class and workers whose jobs are threatened by imports.
I'm in a precarious working class position where hard work and perseverance are advertised as your most valuable assets.
And in an intricate plot about a murder at the palace while the Prince and Princess of Wales are in residence, she also marshals the series's major themes: the way crime reverberates throughout the social classes; the precarious status of women of every rank; and the need for honorable heroes to preserve and protect the Empire, sometimes from itself.
But my family's proud position in the lower middle class was precarious, so embracing more outward displays of rebellion wasn't an option.
It's a precarious existence for the class that would normally stand at the core of a healthy economy.
Both groups, meanwhile, look down on the couch-surfing, old-clothes-wearing hipsters who seem most authentic but are also often the most socially precarious — the lower-middle-class young, moving up through style, but with no backstop of parental culture or family capital.
The increasingly frail and precarious developed world middle class needs to capture any and all revenue it can to stave off poverty.
