When I was a child growing up in England three decades ago, I was confronted with the visual evidence of social mobility every day – but of the downward, not upward, type.
We lived in a suburban, middle-class home. On the walls, however, hung the portrait of an 18th-century Anglo-French aristocrat, a maternal ancestor. In the intervening centuries, my aristocratic forebears had lost their status and wealth due to drink, gambling and poor decisions. Thus, my only link with royalty was that portrait and the fact that I have the same unusual middle name – Romaine – as the noblewoman in the picture.
A rare example of social mobility or a widespread pattern? Today, that is a very politically charged question, particularly in countries such as the US. But it is also a very hard question to answer definitively.