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The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

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Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#171

Post by doktrin »

reggieband wrote: post #136
roywiggins wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tripartite split (elite, bourgeois, poor) is a very old one. I am sure I read a paper in an undergrad poly-sci course that analyzed the fate of nations based on which two teamed up against the third. Elites+poor is a pretty dangerous combination because they end up catching civil society in the pincers.

The author did make the argument that revolutions that start from the middle are usually less violent and chaotic. I don't have the relevant education to know if that is true but I do know that I'd rather lead a revolution than be the victim of it. To be fair to the author, that is his ultimate point. It feels to me that the idea of sacrifice has become a secular heresy. Humility as well. If the middle class has any…

> If the middle class has any hope of allying with the lower class then those two traits will have to ascend from ashes. The real questions is: are we too far gone and is it too late?

I'd honestly ask a slightly different question : how much longer will the lower and middle classes pose a realistic threat to the elites?

To date, economic and social elites have always been at the theoretical mercy of the masses simply by virtue of vastly inferior numbers. We're not that far off from a day when - as a result of technological advances of various kinds - a small minority could feasibly defend themselves both physically and politically against the rest of society.

To me, that's honestly the real ticking time bomb. People can change, grow and adapt to any number of situations - and are remarkably good at finding common ground with their neighbors when necessity dictates. However, once the masses lose their ability to meaningfully threaten the elites, the entire question becomes moot and the ship will have sailed for a long, long time.

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#172

Post by jacob019 »

taurath wrote: post #101
seem_2211 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, you see it a lot in San Francisco (I've noticed it creeps into my mind a lot more frequently than I'd like to admit). The thing is, it's like the boiling a frog in water analogy. You get desensitized to it. I tend to work with salespeople, so there's a tendency to get flashier things than a lot of my programming friends, but it manifests in things like always having the latest iPhone (or it's Android equivalent)…

It’s relative on how you define wealth really - ability to provide stability in the form of a mortgage, or amount of money you make. I feel like in SF or any big expensive city owning a home is not something for the middle or upper middle class - there’s a point that no matter how many brunches or vacations you can take, you can’t trade them for a house except in an area where you’ll be basically going down in econom…

Owning a home is overrated, it owns you.

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#173

Post by Nomentatus »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #159
Nomentatus wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you find topographical maps arbitrary and misleading too? 'Cause it's the same method. What alternative methodology for describing the wealth peak do you prefer? With luck, maybe we'll be able to take it and improve our maps, too.

A standard density function would do fine, and not have a wholly artificial dependence on bucket width. What's a topological map?

Got it - you won't draw any line; that way nobody in particular is responsible or has to do anything. This sort of maneuver is surely just what the author means when he says a central tactic of the 9.9% is: "the pretense of being part of the middle as one of our strategies for remaining on top."

The OP argument in a nutshell: "In the United States, it’s the children of the bottom decile and, above all, the top decile—the 9.9 percent—who settle down nearest to their starting point."

So how would using just a function, so as not to embarrass any one class, fix that?

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#175

Post by mirko22 »

prolikewhoa wrote: post #158
mirko22 wrote: post #92

Which form of society would allow for complete equality? Where everyone has the same things to eat, drink and learn and everyone is missing the same things (usually luxury). I can’t think of any social system like that mostly cos it all involves people and not all people are the same and will behave differently inevitably wanting different stuff which will lead to more more inequality over time. Maybe someone has ide…

Socialism, Communism? The workers owning the means of production and abolition of private property? Cuba is doing fairly fine despite decades of American propaganda & the embargo. It has its problems, but so does USA or any country for that matter.

Not necessarily existing system. Any system where people are truly equal.

Even in communism you will have leaders, and leaders will enjoy some form of higher privilege. So collective ownership of the, in lack of the better word, stuff would still not abolish social privileges, which people renowned in some manner would have.

Likewise, different responsibility instiled in people by any means, will undoubtedly lead to different performance in the work place, which will, in some way or other, separate them from general social or material status.

So, it seems to me, best we could do is some form of society wich has low band of frequency in which people can move in any type of self emerging hierarchy so everyone enjoys nearly the same status.

But how do you deal with over achievers then? There would inevitably be people who, with their performance, go out of that band.

You might start by separating achievers that contribute or take from society which would then lead to having some form of arbitars which would in turn again enyjoy some type of higher status.

And so on... the only truly equal society is the one where everyone share the same thoughts and goals and do the same things, as any deviation into something new could spell special privileges for that individual.

And i do this only as a thought experiment, cos I am stuck in the loop of if not all people think and do the same thing how can we expect them to be same... So maybe someone has ideas about this. Maybe I am just crazy.

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#176

Post by anbende »

Nomentatus wrote: post #157
anbende wrote: post #2

Some of the points about privilege might be accurate, but breaking economic status in to .1%, 9.9%, and 90% is arbitrary and misleading. The author tries to make the point that “the 9.9%” have the majority of the wealth and this issue is as big or bigger than the concentration of wealth at the very top. The problem is that this is largely an artifact of the division system. The distribution is highly skewed, and the…

Do you find topographical maps arbitrary and misleading too? 'Cause it's the same method. What alternative methodology for describing the wealth peak do you prefer? With luck, maybe we'll be able to take it and improve our maps, too.

I think this is a little different. It's not the whole methodology that's the problem. It's the non-standard bin-sizes. If he wants to do log or exponential sizes, then it's 90.1, 9, .9 or you could round it off to 90, 9, and 1. By making it 90, 9.9 and .1, then he's artificially inflated the middle bin size while simultaneously exclaiming that this bin has more wealth in it than expected.

It's like having a y-axis on a graph that reads: 10 100 5000 10000 (with equally spaced points) and then talking about how there's more action between 100 and 5000 than there is between 5000 and 10000.

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#177

Post by Nomentatus »

anbende wrote: post #176
Nomentatus wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you find topographical maps arbitrary and misleading too? 'Cause it's the same method. What alternative methodology for describing the wealth peak do you prefer? With luck, maybe we'll be able to take it and improve our maps, too.

I think this is a little different. It's not the whole methodology that's the problem. It's the non-standard bin-sizes. If he wants to do log or exponential sizes, then it's 90.1, 9, .9 or you could round it off to 90, 9, and 1. By making it 90, 9.9 and .1, then he's artificially inflated the middle bin size while simultaneously exclaiming that this bin has more wealth in it than expected. It's like having a y-axis o…

9.9 is the top ten percent minus the .1 percent - he agrees the .1% are a problem, but wants to address his own class, the rest of the top 10% = 9.9%. That bin has the size it has, and the measured effects he points to presumably deduct the stats for the .1%. There's no trickery, just a stat or two to conjure with.

If you think he's skewed the measure by using mean instead of median or mode and not subtracting the contributions of the .1% that's an interesting argument but you have to make it - show evidence of that, plus make the calculation to demonstrate that the effect is large. If that's the argument I might suggest dropping "bin size" and employing the term "skew."

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#178

Post by sjg007 »

seem_2211 wrote: post #87
zjaffee wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a big debate in the HN world too, where tech workers in that top 10% think they are working class. The real breakdown here is that in todays day and age, there's hardly a middle class, there's the working class who struggles, lives basically paycheck to paycheck, and at the age of 45 has up to 40k in wealth to their name. Then there's that top 10% whose able to afford a million dollar home, take yearly vacati…

Yep, you see it a lot in San Francisco (I've noticed it creeps into my mind a lot more frequently than I'd like to admit). The thing is, it's like the boiling a frog in water analogy. You get desensitized to it. I tend to work with salespeople, so there's a tendency to get flashier things than a lot of my programming friends, but it manifests in things like always having the latest iPhone (or it's Android equivalent)…

Homes in Pleasanton are expensive... not sure what you are on about..

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#179

Post by throw2016 »

The embrace of neoliberalism in the 80s decimated the traditional middle class. Wages stagnated and labor share of income has taken a hit [1] while capital ascended.

Debt has become the biggest product leading to wide scale financialization and rent seeking. Lobbying and revolving doors has further added to entrenched interests benefiting at the cost of the whole.

This is at the heart of how you define a country, a collection of economic interests arbitrated by the market as an end in itself, or a 'society' with larger goals. The neoliberalism agenda has convinced many of the first.

[1] https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/05/capitals-share-incom...

Re: The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

#180

Post by [deleted] »

danharaj wrote: post #3
anbende wrote: post #2

Some of the points about privilege might be accurate, but breaking economic status in to .1%, 9.9%, and 90% is arbitrary and misleading. The author tries to make the point that “the 9.9%” have the majority of the wealth and this issue is as big or bigger than the concentration of wealth at the very top. The problem is that this is largely an artifact of the division system. The distribution is highly skewed, and the…

Right, it obfuscates class distinctions between those who control capital and policy versus those who just have money. I'm somewhat cynical but I think this is an intended obfuscation. It's important for petit bourgeois and wealthy skilled workers to understand their position in the class hierarchy, but calling a class whose power is dwarfed by the capitalist class an aristocracy is fluffy rhetoric.

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