The quality we call class lines up with something researchers have a name for: prestige, the respect people grant you freely rather than under pressure, and the evidence says it is earned by competence and generosity, not by displays of wealth or status

The second is prestige: status granted freely to people others see as skilled, knowledgeable or generous, and want to learn from. You can force compliance by throwing your weight around, and you can buy attention by flashing money, but you cannot make anyone freely admire you, and freely given admiration is the whole substance of prestige. But attention is not the same as the freely given respect we are calling class, and often it is bought at warmth’s expense. But it does explain the stubborn gap between class and money that everyone senses and few can articulate. Class is the freely given kind of respect, the sort that has to be earned in the eyes of others and cannot be purchased or coerced.