Attitude is everything
Time perspective is the only real measure of social class. A wealthy family or a good education will help, but ultimately your level of class will be determined by how far you think and plan into the future as you go about your day to day work and life.
If an immigrant couple comes to the United States with nothing and goes to work at menial jobs, sacrificing so that their children can go to school and attend university, that immigrant couple is demonstrating class, no matter how well they are doing in the present. They are virtually guaranteeing upward social mobility for themselves and their offspring.
The opposite of long time perspective is those people with no time perspective at all. The average professional person has a time perspective of ten, fifteen or twenty years, perhaps longer. The average working person has a time perspective of about two pay periods. The derelict, the hopeless drug addict or alcoholic at the bottom of the social pyramid has a time perspective of minutes or hours. He does not think about the future at all, only the next drink or shot. Everyone is affected by the length of their time perspective, from the top to the bottom of society.
