"One of the reasons that the elites loathe places like McDonald’s, or Walmart, or Target, or any of these places that cater to Everyman—and you might suppose that the champions of the workers and peasants would love these places—is precisely their capacity to rob the rich of their distinctive social markers. One day it was a sign of class and distinction to drink a latte; the next day, every construction worker is doing it. Places like this make it difficult for the rich to set themselves apart from everyone else. This is a message I pick up from both Mises’s Anti-Capitalistic Mentality and Garet Garrett’s wonderful novel Harangue. They both seek to explain the strange elitism of the Left and its opposition to capitalism for the masses. And they both discern that the answer lies in the way that the market is so slavishly devoted to serving the needs of the average person as opposed to society’s philosopher kings."