one archetype......................

 

     Over the years, Franklin had been developing a social outlook that, in its mixture of liberal, populist, and conservative ideas, would become one archetype of American middle-class philosophy.  He exalted hard work, individual enterprise, frugality, and self-reliance. On the other hand, he also pushed for civic cooperation, social compassion, and voluntary community improvement schemes.  He was equally distrustful of the elite and the rabble, of ceding power to the well-born establishment or to an unruly mob.  With his shopkeeper's values he cringed at class warfare.  Bred into his bones was a belief in social mobility and the bootstrap values of rising through hard work.

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life