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It makes sense that the top 10% to 2% become more active as blame and anger are re-routed toward them. For example, many people think the "elite" are the educat

It makes sense that the top 10% to 2% become more active as blame and anger are re-routed toward them. For example, many people think the "elite" are the educated but not necessarily the wealthy. So for many, adjunct faculty are called "elites" while the Koch brothers are not. Likewise, discussions of wealth inequality are becoming conflated with income inequality. Yet the professional class has only marginal voting power and comparatively little to contribute to political funding, so it's not surprising that the astute ones are concerned.

barry-cotter 7y ago
> Yet the professional class has only marginal voting power and comparatively little to contribute to political funding, so it's not surprising that the astute ones are concerned. Likelihood of voting is highly correlated with education. I wouldn’t be surprised if the top ten percent are three or four times more likely to vote than the bottom decile. Money is also far less important in politics than many think. If money won elections Michael Bloomberg would have been president long ago, Eric Cantor would still be a Congressman, rather than having been beaten by Dave Brat[1]. Joe Crowley would still be a Congressman rather than having been beaten by AOC[2]. > Add up all US spending on candidates, PACs, lobbying, think tanks, and advocacy organizations – liberal and conservative combined – and we’re still $2 billion short of what we spend on almonds each year. In fact, we’re still less than Elon Musk’s personal fortune; Musk could personally fund the entire US political ecosystem on both sides for a whole two-year election cycle. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in-almonds/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Brat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Brat In his challenge of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for the Republican nomination, Brat was outspent by Cantor 40 to 1: Cantor spent over $5 million, while Brat raised $200,000 and did not spend all of it. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez She was outspent by a margin of 18 to 1 ($1.5 million to $83,000)
- kaibee 7y ago
  I think this is a somewhat recent (6-7~ years ish?) development. In the early 2000's, money was much more important than it is now.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  > If money won elections Michael Bloomberg would have been president long ago, Mike Bloomberg has won every election he's run in, which is exactly 3 elections. Not the best example.
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    > If money won elections [Steve Forbes] would have been president long ago, More appropriate example then. You can add Perot to that pile as well.
    - akhilcacharya 7y ago
      Better example. Of course, I think Perot could have had a shot if he hadn't dropped out to drop back in. He could have easily have gotten 2nd place or 1st place in more states than UT and ME if he was less impulsive.
maxerickson 7y ago
I wonder if the typical adjunct faculty is more or less 'educated' than someone with a masters in engineering from MIT.
- triceratops 7y ago
  Don't you have to have a PhD to teach at most universities in the US? Not to mention someone with a masters in engineering from MIT could very well be an adjunct faculty themselves.
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    It turns out that both of the Koch brothers that people are talking about when they say that have masters degrees from MIT.
    - triceratops 7y ago
      I don't understand what this has to do with the original question.
- asdff 7y ago
  Presumably adjunct faculty could be more current and active in their respective field than someone who got their degree but spent the bulk of their efforts working on unrelated projects.
tenpies 7y ago
> So for many, adjunct faculty are called "elites" while the Koch brothers are not. I think this is an important point. Wealth in the West knew to stay out of the radar. The whole concept of "old wealth" has the key characteristic of not spending frivolously in public or making a scene. Even in the Instagram age, they largely keep it under control. Their wealth - while beneficial - is not their defining characteristic. Some even argue that the celebrity class exists in part to monopolize the headlines that would otherwise be taken by paparazzi hounding old wealth. This contracts to the extreme with all the new wealth which spends flamboyantly and spends to get attention. We seem to see this thousand fold with the Chinese new rich and their children - hence the Fuerdai term emerging. The resentment of the working class against the old wealth is minimal - they stay out of sight and out of mind. The resentment towards the new wealth is tremendous and I don't think it will end well.
- asdff 7y ago
  Old wealth also spent lavishly, just on things more beneficial to the public. Imagine the costs with constructing an ornate art deco build today, vs. another 6 story wood frame box. At least with the pricey art deco building, the luxury is enjoyed by everyone who uses the space. Not to mention old wealth often donated huge fortunes to civic endeavors. There was good reason why the working class resentment of old wealth was minimal, it was because they weren't only hoarding it for hedonism or a lust for power.
  - StacyRoberts 7y ago
    That's exactly my point earlier. It actually costs relatively more today to get a similar sized building as that high quality art deco building of yesteryear, while the quality has simultaneously declined. Buildings like that aren't built of stone today, rather twigs by comparison. Prices have gone up and quality down. It's not just the wealth gap that is increasing but the value gap even more so.
  - buzzkillington 7y ago
    Being a declassee from "really old wealth" - thank you WWI and the collapse of Austria Hungary - culture was a veneer to hide the hedonism. My great-grandmother, born in 1890, had stories about who would fund the ballet vs the opera. And it had mostly to do with foot fetishism.
maerF0x0 7y ago
I've often suggested this to the chagrin of relatively equally wealthy people (people earning 0.5-2x what I earn) . We're all living the same life, just with different levels of shiny. One drives a used corolla, the other a new one, the 3rd a lexus (made by toyota still). Each has a house with varying levels of pretty etc. The 0.01% is living in an existence far removed from us. They dont play games of wondering which car has the lowest TCO or signals a little status etc. Instead they're playing power games and games of access to things that go beyond the ability to pay for them.
- porknubbins 7y ago
  Different levels of shiny perfectly captures how I feel after taking a 66% paycut. Now I mostly buy food at Costco instead of Whole Foods and wear uniqlo. But I’m much happier having more time and less stress. I couldn’t buy a decent 2br house/apt in my big city before, still can’t. Unless you are trying to pay for kids college or something making an extra 100K in a major metro area mostly just raises your taxes.
  - dwaltrip 7y ago
    I'm sorry you received a pay cut, and I'm glad you are happy with more free time. However, making an extra $100k puts an extra $65k in your bank account. It's basic math. Now, psychologically, I can see it being not so clear cut, especially if one lets their standard of living and spending habits rise up as their paycheck increases.
    - maerF0x0 7y ago
      In SF/Peninsula that's not even enough marginal income to go from renter to home owner. Eg: Single bedroom apartment is ~4k and mortgage on a 1.6M home is almost 12K a month unless you have 350K down payment. IMO the only option in the bay area is FAANG or live as frugal as possible and take the wealth to a lower CoL area. EDIT: or improbably be a highly paid Cofounder / Executive and earn >400K per year.
StacyRoberts 7y ago
The professional class has contributed the most to the wealth gap. We blame the wealthy, but it's not they who are performing the task of wealth extraction. The banks owners don't sign mortgages or repossess homes. The shareholders aren't doing the actual labor that increases page views or patents doodads worth negative value to the poor who buy them and funnel the money up. Owners don't do the taxes that rob society of its own worth. No. It's the professionals who do that immoral work. They are to blame. Not the wealthy. They just pay for it. The professionals, most all of us here are the cause of the wealth gap. It is we who exacerbate the divide and decline of civilization by sacrificing our moral duty to those less fortunate to get a little more cash for ourselves. Listen to us all here now. We know this, yet we continue.
- jerry1979 7y ago
  > the professionals [...] are to blame. Not the wealthy. They just pay for it. This brought to my mind on old Chomsky comment about civilian casualties in war: "Evidently, a crucial case is omitted, which is far more depraved than massacring civilians intentionally. Namely, knowing that you are massacring them but not doing so intentionally because you don’t regard them as worthy of concern. That is, you don’t even care enough about them to intend to kill them. Thus when I walk down the street, if I stop to think about it I know I’ll probably kill lots of ants, but I don’t intend to kill them, because in my mind they do not even rise to the level where it matters. There are many such examples. To take one of the very minor ones, when Clinton bombed the al-Shifa pharmaceutical facility in Sudan, he and the other perpetrators surely knew that the bombing would kill civilians (tens of thousands, apparently). But Clinton and associates did not intend to kill them, because by the standards of Western liberal humanitarian racism, they are no more significant than ants. Same in the case of tens of millions of others." -- https://formicidaefantasy.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/chomsky-on-ants-collateral-damage/ https://formicidaefantasy.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/chomsky-o...
- closeparen 7y ago
  Work widens inequality whether or not it’s extractive. Any time you’re creating value, someone else is not, and the difference between the two of you grows.

barry-cotter 7y ago

> Yet the professional class has only marginal voting power and comparatively little to contribute to political funding, so it's not surprising that the astute ones are concerned. Likelihood of voting is highly correlated with education. I wouldn’t be surprised if the top ten percent are three or four times more likely to vote than the bottom decile. Money is also far less important in politics than many think. If money won elections Michael Bloomberg would have been president long ago, Eric Cantor would still be a Congressman, rather than having been beaten by Dave Brat[1]. Joe Crowley would still be a Congressman rather than having been beaten by AOC[2]. > Add up all US spending on candidates, PACs, lobbying, think tanks, and advocacy organizations – liberal and conservative combined – and we’re still $2 billion short of what we spend on almonds each year. In fact, we’re still less than Elon Musk’s personal fortune; Musk could personally fund the entire US political ecosystem on both sides for a whole two-year election cycle. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in-almonds/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-much-dark-money-in... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Brat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Brat In his challenge of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for the Republican nomination, Brat was outspent by Cantor 40 to 1: Cantor spent over $5 million, while Brat raised $200,000 and did not spend all of it. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez She was outspent by a margin of 18 to 1 ($1.5 million to $83,000)

kaibee 7y ago
I think this is a somewhat recent (6-7~ years ish?) development. In the early 2000's, money was much more important than it is now.
akhilcacharya 7y ago
> If money won elections Michael Bloomberg would have been president long ago, Mike Bloomberg has won every election he's run in, which is exactly 3 elections. Not the best example.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  > If money won elections [Steve Forbes] would have been president long ago, More appropriate example then. You can add Perot to that pile as well.
  - akhilcacharya 7y ago
    Better example. Of course, I think Perot could have had a shot if he hadn't dropped out to drop back in. He could have easily have gotten 2nd place or 1st place in more states than UT and ME if he was less impulsive.

maxerickson 7y ago

I wonder if the typical adjunct faculty is more or less 'educated' than someone with a masters in engineering from MIT.

triceratops 7y ago
Don't you have to have a PhD to teach at most universities in the US? Not to mention someone with a masters in engineering from MIT could very well be an adjunct faculty themselves.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  It turns out that both of the Koch brothers that people are talking about when they say that have masters degrees from MIT.
  - triceratops 7y ago
    I don't understand what this has to do with the original question.
asdff 7y ago
Presumably adjunct faculty could be more current and active in their respective field than someone who got their degree but spent the bulk of their efforts working on unrelated projects.

tenpies 7y ago

> So for many, adjunct faculty are called "elites" while the Koch brothers are not. I think this is an important point. Wealth in the West knew to stay out of the radar. The whole concept of "old wealth" has the key characteristic of not spending frivolously in public or making a scene. Even in the Instagram age, they largely keep it under control. Their wealth - while beneficial - is not their defining characteristic. Some even argue that the celebrity class exists in part to monopolize the headlines that would otherwise be taken by paparazzi hounding old wealth. This contracts to the extreme with all the new wealth which spends flamboyantly and spends to get attention. We seem to see this thousand fold with the Chinese new rich and their children - hence the Fuerdai term emerging. The resentment of the working class against the old wealth is minimal - they stay out of sight and out of mind. The resentment towards the new wealth is tremendous and I don't think it will end well.

asdff 7y ago
Old wealth also spent lavishly, just on things more beneficial to the public. Imagine the costs with constructing an ornate art deco build today, vs. another 6 story wood frame box. At least with the pricey art deco building, the luxury is enjoyed by everyone who uses the space. Not to mention old wealth often donated huge fortunes to civic endeavors. There was good reason why the working class resentment of old wealth was minimal, it was because they weren't only hoarding it for hedonism or a lust for power.
- StacyRoberts 7y ago
  That's exactly my point earlier. It actually costs relatively more today to get a similar sized building as that high quality art deco building of yesteryear, while the quality has simultaneously declined. Buildings like that aren't built of stone today, rather twigs by comparison. Prices have gone up and quality down. It's not just the wealth gap that is increasing but the value gap even more so.
- buzzkillington 7y ago
  Being a declassee from "really old wealth" - thank you WWI and the collapse of Austria Hungary - culture was a veneer to hide the hedonism. My great-grandmother, born in 1890, had stories about who would fund the ballet vs the opera. And it had mostly to do with foot fetishism.

maerF0x0 7y ago

I've often suggested this to the chagrin of relatively equally wealthy people (people earning 0.5-2x what I earn) . We're all living the same life, just with different levels of shiny. One drives a used corolla, the other a new one, the 3rd a lexus (made by toyota still). Each has a house with varying levels of pretty etc. The 0.01% is living in an existence far removed from us. They dont play games of wondering which car has the lowest TCO or signals a little status etc. Instead they're playing power games and games of access to things that go beyond the ability to pay for them.

porknubbins 7y ago
Different levels of shiny perfectly captures how I feel after taking a 66% paycut. Now I mostly buy food at Costco instead of Whole Foods and wear uniqlo. But I’m much happier having more time and less stress. I couldn’t buy a decent 2br house/apt in my big city before, still can’t. Unless you are trying to pay for kids college or something making an extra 100K in a major metro area mostly just raises your taxes.
- dwaltrip 7y ago
  I'm sorry you received a pay cut, and I'm glad you are happy with more free time. However, making an extra $100k puts an extra $65k in your bank account. It's basic math. Now, psychologically, I can see it being not so clear cut, especially if one lets their standard of living and spending habits rise up as their paycheck increases.
  - maerF0x0 7y ago
    In SF/Peninsula that's not even enough marginal income to go from renter to home owner. Eg: Single bedroom apartment is ~4k and mortgage on a 1.6M home is almost 12K a month unless you have 350K down payment. IMO the only option in the bay area is FAANG or live as frugal as possible and take the wealth to a lower CoL area. EDIT: or improbably be a highly paid Cofounder / Executive and earn >400K per year.

StacyRoberts 7y ago

The professional class has contributed the most to the wealth gap. We blame the wealthy, but it's not they who are performing the task of wealth extraction. The banks owners don't sign mortgages or repossess homes. The shareholders aren't doing the actual labor that increases page views or patents doodads worth negative value to the poor who buy them and funnel the money up. Owners don't do the taxes that rob society of its own worth. No. It's the professionals who do that immoral work. They are to blame. Not the wealthy. They just pay for it. The professionals, most all of us here are the cause of the wealth gap. It is we who exacerbate the divide and decline of civilization by sacrificing our moral duty to those less fortunate to get a little more cash for ourselves. Listen to us all here now. We know this, yet we continue.

jerry1979 7y ago
> the professionals [...] are to blame. Not the wealthy. They just pay for it. This brought to my mind on old Chomsky comment about civilian casualties in war: "Evidently, a crucial case is omitted, which is far more depraved than massacring civilians intentionally. Namely, knowing that you are massacring them but not doing so intentionally because you don’t regard them as worthy of concern. That is, you don’t even care enough about them to intend to kill them. Thus when I walk down the street, if I stop to think about it I know I’ll probably kill lots of ants, but I don’t intend to kill them, because in my mind they do not even rise to the level where it matters. There are many such examples. To take one of the very minor ones, when Clinton bombed the al-Shifa pharmaceutical facility in Sudan, he and the other perpetrators surely knew that the bombing would kill civilians (tens of thousands, apparently). But Clinton and associates did not intend to kill them, because by the standards of Western liberal humanitarian racism, they are no more significant than ants. Same in the case of tens of millions of others." -- https://formicidaefantasy.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/chomsky-on-ants-collateral-damage/ https://formicidaefantasy.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/chomsky-o...
closeparen 7y ago
Work widens inequality whether or not it’s extractive. Any time you’re creating value, someone else is not, and the difference between the two of you grows.