During the Reagan eighties, the idea that money was a good thing - it was good to be rich; that wealth was a reflection of your character. We see this today in perceptions of Donald Trump: the idea that money is an expression of success and even goodness. I compare that with my dad's generation, where the American Dream was about giving your kids a better life, but not just in material terms. The American Dream was also about doing something good in the world. The home was at the center of the dream, but home also represented community, shelter, and stability for your family.

My photography is often a sociological look at American culture and it's been very well published in the UK.

Race is a huge factor when it comes to income and social inequality, and it plays a role in the structural barriers you are talking about. But when you're in the upper echelon of the 1 percent - even though it's certainly a more white demographic overall - there are fewer barriers.

These days, the media is defining what cultural capital is, and it's easily learned. If you have money, anything can be bought. We see this in China and Russia with what I call the "Bling Dynasty and New Oligarchy" in Generation Wealth. As people got rich and everybody started buying Louis Vuitton bags, it became clear that to distinguish yourself you had to have more than an expensive bag. People began to want the things that money is not supposed to be able to buy - history, tradition, education, and culture.

My first book, Fast Forward, was about growing up in the shadow of Hollywood and how kids are affected by the culture of materialism and the cult of celebrity, and I've often felt the reason my work has an audience in the UK is because it's everything the British love to hate about the Americans.

You have these relationships with people that you care about, but I also try to stick to my job as filmmaker and be fair and truthful about what I saw and my experience of the people, hopefully informed by a deep understanding of them.

I've often looked at the extremes as a way to shed light on the mainstream. Even though everybody says, "Money doesn't buy you happiness," I don't think that that's the principle by which people live. If you talk to kids and ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they say, "Rich and famous," but being rich and famous is not a job.