Is social class "natural" or constructed?

In an everyday scenario, we all know that money does not
buy class. It can purchase a good enough costume to make it look like someone has class,
but behavior is often the key of whether one will be accepted or not in certain
society.

In a scenario such as Daisy Miller's, her world is
quite different than ours. As a nouveau-riche, Daisy has been able to basically
"purchase" her ticket to join the high society. However, this high society we are
talking about is quite different from what Daisy is used to knowing. For once, these
high class individuals such as Winterbourne and his peers are closely related to the
aristocratic classes, or have strong ties with their European ancestors. This is
especially true of the early 20th century New York dutch-tied society as shown, for
example, in Edith Wharton's Age of
Innocence.

Due to these strong ties to Europe,
the American nouveau-riches had the money, but not the connections to establish a strong
peerage with powerful families. Hence, what many of them did was to become patrons to
poor aristocrats that would benefit them with a European
connection.

All this being said, Daisy still lacks all the
elements she needs to succeed as a bona fide member of the upper crust of society: She
lacks the needs that they have to preserve an image of superiority and power. Hence,
while they display behaviors that date back to their proud ancestry, she displays the
behaviors of, well, a nouveau riche. This is both shocking and annoying to most upper
class people. This is also the reason why it was easier for Winterbourne to dismiss
Daisy than what we as readers would have expected.