I wish to begin with a brief biographical note to provide a more human introduction to a scholarly project which developed out of an abiding preoccupation with the promise and betrayal of elites in the modern commercial world. Having been raised in a middle-class suburb of Montreal, Quebec, I had the good fortune to attend an elite prep school throughout my childhood. I was afforded this privilege by dint of coming of age before a prolonged period of quantitative easing, when the personal sacrifices of my first-generation Canadian, restaurant-owning parents were still sufficient for giving their children access to an education typically reserved for the Brahmin classes of Montreal's anglophone community. My family's fortunes took a turn for the worse after a disgruntled restaurant competitor with connections to an underworld – which keeps itself tethered to industries that operate with large cash flows – made a nearly successful attempt on my, my father's and my brother's life. The incident generated spectacular news headlines, causing unwarranted reputational damage to my family and an extended period of severe financial hardship, marked with bankruptcies and painful home foreclosures initiated by predatory lenders. Despite these challenges, I continued attending the same prep school thanks to a series of ostensibly imprudent financial decisions, justified by an assured expectation that the social capital I was accruing would yield long-term bountiful returns.

The sudden change of material circumstances had me reconciling a culture that is sometimes rough around the edges with one whose ‘commercial’ manners I came to appreciate, recognising how they could help lubricate the personal frictions I constantly encountered with the chaotic situations that followed my family's misfortune. What I had come to value most was not the economic ladder that my privilege gave me access to, but a moral orientation – to be kind, not to bully, to stand out of respect when a superior entered the room, to say grace before meals, to respect the rules of fair play in competitive sports, and to maintain a healthy contempt for money – the last of which I naively internalised having not yet absorbed Adam Smith's warning about emulating the nobility without acquiring the virtues requisite for achieving nobility.