Did you know Godiva was a unit of the Campbell Soup Company?

Rising incomes, flattening prices and easily available credit have given so many Americans access to such a wide array of high-end goods that traditional markers of status have lost much of their meaning.

Everyone, meanwhile, appears to be blending into a classless crowd, shedding the showiest kinds of high-status clothes in favor of a jeans-and-sweatsuit informality.

Social competition used to be played out largely at the neighborhood level, among people in roughly the same class.

In the last 30 years or so, however, as people have become increasingly isolated from their neighbors, a barrage of magazines and television shows celebrating the toys and totems of the rich has fostered a whole new level of desire across class groups.

Millions of Americans who could not have dreamed of buying their own homes two decades ago are now doing so in record numbers. A flood of credit is now available to many financially vulnerable families and extended in a reckless and aggressive manner in many cases without thought to implications.

"People want to participate in our brand because we are an affordable luxury," said Gene Dunkin, president of Godiva North America, a unit of the Campbell Soup Company.