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Without diminishing your achievements, the term 'elite' often refers to individuals possessing substantial societal influence, through wealth or similar channel

Without diminishing your achievements, the term 'elite' often refers to individuals possessing substantial societal influence, through wealth or similar channels. This usually means the top 0.01%.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> the term 'elite' often refers to individuals possessing substantial societal influence, through wealth or similar channels It’s used variously. In terms of elite overproduction, it’s anyone with an education. In terms of social policy, it’s anyone with philanthropic wealth; top 1% is easily in this category. Top 5%, depending on one’s community.
rayiner 3y ago
That’s an unreasonably narrow definition of “elite” for any purpose which you’d want to talk about the elite. The top 0.01% depend on armies of top 5% people. The incomes of people at the 95th percentile have continued to grow at consistent rates throughout the 20th century, while the median income stagnated: https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-widely-shared-in-early-postwar-decades-but-not-since-then-3 https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-widely-shared-in-early-pos.... For example, I’m not in the 0.01%, but as a corporate attorney I make multiples of what I would make in Europe. Is that because American lawyers are smarter? No. It’s because the sheer profitability of American companies means they have a ton of money to fight legal battles with each other. The same is true for everyone from accountants to software engineers. Why are Silicon Valley salaries so high? Because Google and Facebook have profit margins comparable to Standard Oil back in the day. And whether they think about it or not, all of these people have a strong incentive to maintain the system that enables them to capture an outsized share of the economy. Thus, properly defined, the elites include the ordinary wealthy whose livelihoods are intertwined with those of the super wealthy. In Scandinavian countries, the top tax bracket starts around 1.5x the median income. I think that’s a pretty fair definition of “elite”—these are people who would be worse off under a more equitable system. The term also properly includes the educational elites who staff various bureaucracies and organizations that have high degrees of social influence. If you look at the folks who exercise decision making authority over the lives of ordinary people (everyone from judges to regulators), they overwhelmingly come from a handful of elite schools. DOJ attorneys might not be rich, but they went to school with and are friends with the CEOs and hedge fund guys. The same is true for journalists at national-level outfits like the New York Times.

Without diminishing your achievements, the term 'elite' often refers to individuals possessing substantial societal influence, through wealth or similar channels. This usually means the top 0.01%.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> the term 'elite' often refers to individuals possessing substantial societal influence, through wealth or similar channels It’s used variously. In terms of elite overproduction, it’s anyone with an education. In terms of social policy, it’s anyone with philanthropic wealth; top 1% is easily in this category. Top 5%, depending on one’s community.

rayiner 3y ago

That’s an unreasonably narrow definition of “elite” for any purpose which you’d want to talk about the elite. The top 0.01% depend on armies of top 5% people. The incomes of people at the 95th percentile have continued to grow at consistent rates throughout the 20th century, while the median income stagnated: https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-widely-shared-in-early-postwar-decades-but-not-since-then-3 https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-widely-shared-in-early-pos.... For example, I’m not in the 0.01%, but as a corporate attorney I make multiples of what I would make in Europe. Is that because American lawyers are smarter? No. It’s because the sheer profitability of American companies means they have a ton of money to fight legal battles with each other. The same is true for everyone from accountants to software engineers. Why are Silicon Valley salaries so high? Because Google and Facebook have profit margins comparable to Standard Oil back in the day. And whether they think about it or not, all of these people have a strong incentive to maintain the system that enables them to capture an outsized share of the economy. Thus, properly defined, the elites include the ordinary wealthy whose livelihoods are intertwined with those of the super wealthy. In Scandinavian countries, the top tax bracket starts around 1.5x the median income. I think that’s a pretty fair definition of “elite”—these are people who would be worse off under a more equitable system. The term also properly includes the educational elites who staff various bureaucracies and organizations that have high degrees of social influence. If you look at the folks who exercise decision making authority over the lives of ordinary people (everyone from judges to regulators), they overwhelmingly come from a handful of elite schools. DOJ attorneys might not be rich, but they went to school with and are friends with the CEOs and hedge fund guys. The same is true for journalists at national-level outfits like the New York Times.