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Many of his other insights still bite. He argued that the old-fashioned class struggle was being replaced by other, equally vexatious conflicts: for example, between the principles of equality and meritocracy in higher education. He also anticipated the current debate about happiness by pointing out that material progress cannot eliminate the frustrations inherent in the zero-sum competition for power, prestige and the attention of the sexiest person in the room. The more people are free to rise on their own merits, the more they will race on the treadmill for status.
Mr Bell’s best book was “The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism”. In it he raised the possibility that the material abundance that capitalism produces might destroy the very virtues that had made capitalism possible in the first place. Capitalism, as Max Weber said, depends on the Puritan virtues of hard work, thrift and deferred gratification. But modern consumerism was stimulating the appetite for instant gratification and irrational self-expression, Mr Bell worried. The Protestant ethic was being destroyed by the shopping mall and the counter-culture.
This argument is not watertight. Despite Mr Bell’s cultural contradictions and Karl Marx’s economic contradictions, capitalism is still going strong. In “Bobos in Paradise” David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, argued that a cocktail of bourgeois virtues and bohemian values can prove economically invigorating.

A. 어휘
insights 통찰. bite 자극하다, 효과를 보다, 물어뜯다.
class struggle 계급투쟁. vexatious 성가신, 짜증나게 하는, 화나는.
meritocracy 실력주의, 실력사회. eliminate 제거하다.
frustrations 좌절. inherent 固有(고유)한, 타고난.
prestige 위신, 명망. treadmill 발로 밟아 돌리는 바퀴(징벌도구).
status 지위. abundance 豊饒(풍요). thrift 儉約(검약).
deferred 延期(연기)된. gratification 만족. appetite 욕망, 식욕.
irrational 비합리적인. counter-culture 反文化(반문화).
watertight 빈틈없는, 완벽한. bohemian 자유분방한.
invigorating 기운 나게 하는.