The word — homoploutia — will never become widespread. It's too awkward.
And I'm sure you know that what you're describing is normaly called aristocracy. But I'm nor sure why you're carefully avoiding *that* word.
Purely for fun, I'd be interested in the parallel with the previous version of the aristocracy. How are their children raised? Which stories they get to hear and internalize?
Because one of the main features of the aristocracy is that it's hereditary. And it used to be that what the ancestors were doing, perhaps a few hundred years back, was more important than anything else. Because that's what made one better than the rest of the society.
But, at some point in time, that changed. To qoute E. H. Carr:
Belief in dominant importance of heredity was progressive so long as you believe that acquired characteristics were inherited.
When this was rejected, the belief in heredity became reactionary.
There is an excellent book on this topic of what you’re calling homoploutia: Daniel Markovits’s Meritocracy Trap. His argument is that some of the wealthiest people today are no longer capitalists but “super-ordinate workers” or a new kind of proletariat (lawyers, Wall Street bankers, c-suite executives, doctors, etc). Jacobin interviewed him a few years back: https://jacobin.com/2019/09/meritocracy-trap-inequality-human-capital-markovits
Absolutely. In my forthcoming "The Great Global Transformation" I precisely link homoploutia to meritocracy as excellently described & discussed by Markovits. Here is my review of Markovits's book:
«I precisely link homoploutia to meritocracy as excellently described & discussed by Markovits. Here is my review of Markovits's book»
In that review there is perhaps a terminology ambiguity:
“The economic and cultural divide that has opened between the meritocrats and the middle class feeds the cultural and political wars in the United States.”
That to me seems to use "middle class" in the common "centrist" (and american) sense of "middle *income* class, that is middle 40-60% of the income distribution which in functional terms is the non-supervisory working class; while the homoploutia seems to be in functional terms the upper-middle class of semi-proletarians ("bilocated in class" in political studies) that overlaps with the "petty bourgeoisie".
BTW I think that there are three main uses of "middle class":
* functional: supervisory and professional workers who act as agents of the owners.
* propaganda: middle income people that is the working class (usually but not only "white collar").
* marketing: people with disposable income so able purchase commodities that carry status ("branded").
Not convinced yet. The top decile is very large, heterogeneous and imperfectly representative of what you might call class power. The top 1% gets closer, but with the top .1% we're beginning to get there. Of course, the data may be insufficient, but we don't want to be confined to the lampposts.
I suspect very few billionaires acquired much their income in the form of salaries. They may well have received a big chunk of it from stock options, but I would regard this as functionally "capital" -- the incentives are the same. In any case, in the age of VC the distinction between entrepreneur and "worker" breaks down: what exactly is the relationship between the business founder financed by VC and those that finance them?
This isn't supported by hard empirical data, but when I think in terms of political economy, the economic class with disproportionate political power consists of owners and managers of capital. Not managers in general, but managers specifically of capital, which in financialized enterprises takes in a lot, maybe most, of the top tier. Again, it's ultimately about the deployment of economic power and the incentives that direct it.;
"What is new?" - The only new thing are the simply absurd conclusions drawn from the fact that there always existed what Marx called 'Labor-aristocracy" and what was excellently analyzed by Barbara Ehrenreich in her classic essays about the rise of the PMC class (Professional Managerial Class) in the late 70's. Income based social stratification to use a term by Max Weber - whatever the sources of the income - are static economic snapshots and can in no way explain historical and sociological developments, the dynamics of which are reflected in terms of class as a social relationship. To equate income based social status and its entailing social and political power with surplus seeking exploitation by capitalism is appalling in its ignorance to put it mildly
Labor aristocracy is simply well-paid labor. Such well-paid labor never attained the position of homoploutia b/c the latter requires not only to be among top wage earners, but among top capitalists AND to be in the top by total income. Homoploutia is related, but conceptually entirely different from PMC. Precisely, b/c it is capitalist it supports capitalist virtues which was never obvious for PMC.
I beg to differ. That is a strawman argument and just semantics. Labor aristocracy and homoploutia comes down to the same thing - it is income related disproportionally distributed bourgeois privileges growing out of capitalism as different forms of rewards.
Conceptually regarding the kernel of capital homoploutia is irrelevant. It represents social status, derived from income, whereas capital is always based on explotation, no matter how you slice it. Homoploutia usually is not surplus extraction but a combination of labor income and indirect exploitation via financial assets. It is a bourgeois phenomenon which marx would have called the form of appereance of social prestige.
Its forms are changing with times. It reflects the elitist mechanism of upwards distribution growing out of the changing dynamics of capitalism. Its forms are irrelevant, call it aristocracy, homoploutia, whatever.
The essence of capital on the contrary is capitalist exploitation. Manifestations of social power are always downstream to exploitation, which is the foundation.
Besides, most of that small elite called Homoploutia grew out of the PMC category. Essentially here is no difference between Bezos and Roman Oligarchs, none, not the least bit,if you lift the veil of the form of appereances of capitalist enrichment which Marx did.
Homoploutia members ar simply symptoms of late capitalism but not capitalists. They work and have their money working for them ike everyone who has a savings account and is employed. It just occurs on a larger scale. The share ratio of their income between salary for work and financial gains from assets is a mere nuance. You have to look beyond the phenomenons, like Marx, when he spoke of forms of appreances and fetishism. Homoploutia is just a descriptive construct to invent a naming fitting to modern times. The concept of homoploutia comes down to no more than one of the futile attempts of bourgeois economics to superficially tinkering with effects pf capitalism . The concept is empty and lacks any class dynamics just like PMC, which also needs to be ranked as a identifiable social order among the petty bourgroisie as part of that class.
Capital is a social relation and a flow, not to be confused with lots of money based on high income from diffeent sources, like extraordinarily well paid labor and monetary gains from financial assets. It certainly has an element of rentierism in it. Capital and capitalist in its essence on the contrary thrive on surplus extraction first and foremost in its basic drive to reproduce that extraction mechanism in a variety of forms. Homoploutia comprises skilled money managers in their own interest but not capitalists. Bezos is a capitalist not because of its high income but because of the surplus labor extractive dynamics he represents. calling Homoploutia capitalist is far fetched because members of that stratum still perform work and totally lack what Bezos epitomizes.
The exploitative drive for surplus extraction is the root cause. Everything else, riches, financial asset based wealth and money and the resulting social power are downstream and subordinated to exploitation. The manifestations of the latter a mere social phenomenons. Homoploutia merely describes bourgeois symptoms of different ways of acquiring wealth and not capital, no matter how hard and eloquent you may try to frame the fact of divided income from salaried labor and financial assets as capital. In fact it is just money plain and simple. Homoploutia is just a contemporary form of elitist social power and does not form a separate class no more than PMC does. Both are just different forms of the petty bourgeoisie. There is an irreconcilable separation between labor and capital and class forms its separation line based on property rights and exploitation. Marx was very cleasr about that and his dictum holds. You never can merge labor and capital and every attempt to argue for that is a mere intellectual smokescreen, as there are many these days. You can not merge monetary gains from salaries and interest with capital other than as income, which is not capital. The bearded one had a few remarkable things to say about those futile attempts to justify bourgeois exploitation. His analysis definitely is timeless as long as there is labor exploitation.
The fallcy is to concluding from high income based on financial assets that homoploutia is capitalist. A steady interest income from a savings account does not make someone a capitalist. The whole argument lacks coherence.
Capital accumulation as the core of the flow of capital and its manifestations of a social relation is also completely disregarded. Capital accumulation and hoarding as one of the key functions of money as Marx defined them are diametrically opposed, which might excellently signify the difference between homoploutia and capital.
Take away the capital part and there are laborers. Take away the labor part they are just rich, like rich unemployed persons living off of passive interest income not directly exploiting anybody else’s labor. They might become capitalists if they would directly engage in surplus seeking activities and investment that involves other people‘s work. Once they stop being salaried employees they fall no longer in the category of homoploutia. This highly fabricated category is just another fancy veil that in fact just means what the term says: the same riches with the stress on riches, which in any serious analysis is not to be equated with capital. No more than that, on no account: just riches, not capitalist but rich.
Social differences related from income and lifestyle resulting in status cut across all classes, especially the working class. Regarding the necessary class structures when it comes to analysis of capital, its members remain members of that class despite all diffrerences in appereances. Homoploutia is a social layer just like PMC, but still belonginging to the same class. On that I highly recommend G.E.M. de Ste. Croix - The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. It is an outstanding and excellent analysis of class in antiquity through a marxist lens and a definitive account on the development of class and its entailing social phenomena. Homoploutia in our times might be one of them. It is not capitalist but simply a social phenomenom reflecting bourgeois privileges. To establish an illustrative analogy, upper middle class is a simalar term. used in such context highlighting the differences between social orders and class.
Capital and labor are strictly to be kept apart theoretically regarding value extraction. That fact renders anything said about homoploutia as capital a moot point.
The statistics quoted are for the top 10% but of course the same effect occurs lower down the spectrum. People in the top third (say) of the income distribution are more likely to have had well-off parents who supported their education and gifted them housing capital to live in or to rent out to others. They will be able to save into a better pension invested in stock market wealth.
This influential group will likely oppose increases in both wealth and income taxes and favour austerity. They will campaign mightily against any building development that might undermine the market value of their houses. They will be powerful agents of an economic stagnation that they can afford to protect themselves from. But in so doing they create around them a political climate favourable to far-right demagogy and democratic decline.
Because usually their jobs are also based on positions of rent: for example possession of side-capital like a top degree, a professional license, a disposition to complicity with the owners, being protected from competition by government policy, etc. Many of them are also agents ("trusties") and there is an ancient "sharecropper problem" (agent-principal conflict of interest) which often is resolved in favor of the "sharecroppers" (agents).
Employer is taking advantage from rest of world where he sells his product etc., and pay some small cut to your employee ( I mean the employee image that was in your mind when you wrote this,I hope I am right and you imagined a software engineer)
It is impossible for the working and capitalist classes to merge because class is about the relations of production and not the individual human being itself.
Labor and capital is the ultimate, insuperable contradiction of capitalism. It will never be abolished without the destruction of capitalism.
The in-between classes between those two are indeed optional, and can be destroyed without destroying capitalism. In fact, capitalism becomes more pure as it eliminates those middle classes, so the tendency, as Marx pointed out in Das Kapital, is indeed for capitalism to polarize itself in its two essential classes: proletariat (worker) and capitalist.
So, for example, a worker has some stocks. Is he working class or a capitalist? It depends on what he is in the greater scheme of things, ie from the point of view of the mode of production. In the case of a capitalist who works, this is a simple case of the capitalist working for himself/exploiting himself: he still is a capitalist, his work is just a drop in the ocean of his individual capital. In the case of a capitalist who is indebted to a bank, the profit is divided between interest and profit of enterprise (we still have two capitalist, one above the other).
Either way, it is impossible for a capitalist society to have only worker-capitalists (ie middle class members). A worker with stocks can only sustain such fragile equilibrium because, somewhere, many other workers must be dispossessed (proletarian=one who only has his/her body to sell). The proletarian is the base of these relations of production, in every possible capitalist universe.
》... is indeed for capitalism to polarize itself in its two essential classes: proletariat (worker) and capitalist.《
What do we do with the case when the owner is a pension fund or several pension funds? And it could well be that those funds are managing assets belonging to the working class.
That has always looked like "oh shit, myself from the future is exploiting myself from the present."
The pension fund itself is fictitious capital (financial capital). The director/CEO of the pension fund is a capitalist, or a manager (or both).
This is such the case that, frequently, workers' pension funds clash directly with their own contributors, eg when the director of such pension funds commemorate the rise of their own country's interest rate.
«from the point of view of the mode of production. [...] worker-capitalists (ie middle class members).»
From a functional (“relations of production”) point of view the middle class is called "middle" because it is made of the supervisors who manage other workers on behalf of the capitalists, they are not capitalists themselves *as such*. Their income comes from their work. They are still "downstairs" people like a head butler or a head gardener in a mansion.
«So, for example, a worker has some stocks. Is he working class or a capitalist?»
If middle-class workers acquire capital (thanks to being paid better than other servants so they can save and buy housing etc.) then while they remain "middle class" they also become "semi-proletarian", that is worker-capitalists.
By contrast the case is different for self-employed lawyers: they own some means of production (their government-issued license) and are usually "petty bourgeois" (because as a rule they also employ assistants, juniors, cleaners, ...) that also work on their capital, they are not "semi-proletarians", they are selling a commodity (licensed legal advice).
The classical, Marxist definition of the middle class in capitalism is the managerial class.
In this definition, the lowest manager up to the CEO is middle class.
The key here is that their work is unproductive and their salaries are a portion of the surplus value not lost due to the extra enforced discipline over the productive workers they are overseeing and disciplining.
Aside from the middle class, the only other class of workers that is unproductive, according to Marx, is commerce. Commerce is a special case because, conceptually, it is merely the specialization and unification of the warehouses of the individual industrial capitals.
There is wide consensus nowadays that the middle class as defined in the USA during the Postwar period never existed: it was just a marketing concept.
Excellent reply to debunk bourgeois pseudo-marxism with which liberals more and more try to co-opt a watered down Marx for their hopeless reformist agenda
"Thus, instead of a class-based society of the old capitalism, we now have an elite-ruled society. In their own personae, they transcend the contradiction between capital and labor but achieve this only at the “cost” of distinguishing themselves from the rest of the population, that is by creating an elite sitting atop of society." This sounds as an exageration to me. It seems to me that CEOs, when they used to be only CEOs, were not simple "workers" that faced a contradiciton with capital the same way of workers did, they were agents of capital, agents who organized capital and received in exchange what Marx call something that could be translated to english as "entrepreneurial gain", high salaries payed thanks to the extration of surplus-value. According to Marx, they used to fulfil the functions once fulfiled by individual capitalists. This, along with the raise of stock companies, says Marx, certainly changes the class structure of capitalist society, but does not transcend the contradiction between capital and labour, because capital is a social relationship, not a thing. The fact that these guys become so rich at the point of becoming capitalists themselves does not seem to me to transcend the contradiciton between capital and labor. Actually, the contradiction may be reinforced once they are at the same time people who accumulated through the direct extraction of surplus-value and getting themselves high salaries. I totally agree that this is a novelty, but I am not coinvicend that this novelty transcend the contradiction between capital and labor. I think that some considerations about class theory as developed by Eric Olin Wiright would be very interesting here.
«highly-skilled people who have attended the best schools and probably feel to have deserved their superior position. [...] Three things are linked here: ownership of lots of capital, high level of education, and a highly paid job.»
BTW this is pretty much what is meant in the USA and UK by fake-populists as the "sneering rootless liberal elites" who look down on "middle-income nationalist workers".
«But the managerial revolution was overblown. It never happened and it is not happening. Managers as such never succeeded in creating a third class.»
Indeed managers are still part of the working class: their role is on behalf of their "masters" (upper-class) to act as "trusties" (middle-class) to supervise the "servants" (working-class) and to repress the "residuum" (under-class, "lumpen-proletariat").
«What happened instead, as I argued in my 2019 book and several new papers confirm, is the rise of a homoploutic elite in the United States, in particular, and also in other rich capitalist economies.»
That seems to be what used to be called "semi-proletarian": the category that derives income from both work and capital (or at the other end both free labour and serf labour). Note: "petty bourgeois" persons like restaurant owners often work in the business they own so can also be semi-proletarian but "petty bourgeois" is not the same as "semi-proletarian".
«They may be financial sector CEOs, engineers, doctors, software developers (and hence receiving high salaries) and at the same time having large financial wealth that generates sufficiently high capital income to place them at the top of capital income distribution.»
In many "western" countries the critical element is house ownership (in desirable areas), and in the USA also 401k stock ownership. That is what makes "semi-proletarians" feel they are "masters" and that their interests are aligned with the upper-class even if they are merely middle-class.
«the percentage of the people in the top income decile who are homoploutic: the share ranges from almost 30 percent in the United Stats and Italy to 16 percent in Japan and South Korea. data for China in [...] at 32 percent. [...] The elite will be fully formed and impregnable when perhaps 80 or 90 percent of the richest income decile becomes homoploutic. [...] an elite-ruled society»
That means rising from around from 3% to 8-9% of the total; the percentage of house owners (in desirable areas) is much higher, around 20-40%, and matters far more politically than the percentage of the "homoploutic" in the top decile. But also close to 100% of the top decile own property (usually more than one), so on that account the top decile is already "homoploutic".
Since Reagan and Thatcher we have had several decades of mass rentierism and the "centrist" politics that come with mass rentierism. The semi-proletarian that are mass rentiers believe themselves to be "elite" and vote (and donate) accordingly.
While it is interesting that the "homoploutic" narrowly defined are also rising recently among the top decile, sort of achieving perhaps greater importance than the "petty bourgeois", I think that the big story is the mass rentierism of the house owning "semi-proletarians" and that is not a new development.
What is curious to me is that mass rentierism is a big deal that has been obvious for decades and has strongly shaped politics, but it is not a popular topic on the left (but it is celebrated on the right). Member of professions, politicians, party officials, intellectuals, school heads, trade unionists, government managers, professors all belong to the house owning "semi proletarians".
"Percentage of people who own a house in a desirable area" seems very arbitrary. It obviously depends entirely on a completely random cutoff. I also don't think that everyone with a house and a 401k feels that their interest is aligned with the upper class.
A blog comment by a member of the UK New Labour Party:
“I raised the problematic policy on my CLP Facebook group. I was stunned by the support for the policy from the countless landlords who were Party members! "I can't afford to give my tenants a rent holiday" "This is my pension, I'll go bust" etc etc. Absolutely stunning. I had no idea how many private landlords there were in the Party. Kinda explains a lot...”
«The growth of the investor class -- those 70 per cent of voters who own stock and are more opposed to taxes and regulations on business as a result -- is strengthening the conservative movement. More gun owners, fewer labor union members, more homeschoolers, more property owners and a dwindling number of FDR-era Democrats all strengthen the conservative movement versus the Democrats. [...]
But going into November, what actually saved it for the Republicans was the investor vote, which went heavily R. Why? One, they didn't blame Bush for the collapse of the bubble.
They were mad at having lower stock prices and 401(k)s, but they didn't say Bush did this and that caused this. Secondly, the Democratic solution was to sic the trial lawyers on Enron and finish it off. No no no no no. We want our market caps to go back up, not low. [...]
Now if you say we're going to smash the big corporations, 60-plus percent of voters say "That's my retirement you're messing with. I don't appreciate that". And the Democrats have spent 50 years explaining that Republicans will pollute the earth and kill baby seals to get market caps higher. And in 2002, voters said, “We're sorry about the seals and everything but we really got to get the stock market up.»
The post is about the US, but states that the development of a homoploutic elite is taking place across advanced economies. Looking at Germany, the puzzling thing about this observation is that a party which would be closest to the (economic) preferences of an emerging homoploutic elite, notably the FDP, has been quite volatile in its electoral successes over the last two decades. (Then again, one could argue that the emerging elite-ruled order transcends the existing party system...but that would raise the question what a supposedly emerging elite-ruled order would look like?).
one could even question whether a class-based order (as opposed to an elite-ruled order) ever existed in advanced economies in the first place. Bernard Manin argued (in principles of representative government) that representative democracy always was - in theory of not in practice - largely elite-based.
«a party which would be closest to the (economic) preferences of an emerging homoploutic elite, notably the FDP, has been quite volatile in its electoral successes over the last two decades.»
Like the SDP or LibDems in the UK: "homoplutes" like social leftism and economic rightism, and that is a rare combination of preferences. So "homoplutes" (like the whigs did in the UK) tend to infiltrate and take over both parties of the left (Blair in the UK, Clinton in the USA) and the right (Cameron in the UK, Romney in the USA). So socialist/social-democratic parties have a disproportionate number of "whigs" in their leadership and rightist/conservative parties too.
«Bernard Manin argued (in principles of representative government) that representative democracy always was - in theory of not in practice - largely elite-based.»
If by that he means "heavily infiltrated by whigs" indeed. Anyhow as to representative democracy some quotes:
“Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor. [...] We are governed (and our state is “knocked into shape”) by bourgeois bureaucrats, by bourgeois members of parliament, by bourgeois judges”
The admission fee top the top income/wealth deciles is not too daunting.
- Wealth: UK/US 1.6m USD, Germany/AUS 1m
- Income: USD 90k , in US 180K
Theoretially, one would check the values now with the median and the top 1% and see if there have bee relative changes over the years The wealth in many district can be attained by the inheritance of a standard free-standing dwelling. Some may have boght themselves a flat before that happened
On those type of figures I would be reluctant to call members of the top deciles automatically elites.
How much of the cross-national pattern is due to different forms of pension entitlement? For example, in Australia a large part of pension entitlements are held in socially-mandated private accounts (included in wealth surveys). In Europe, there are more generous pension entitlements, but these are not included in wealth calculations. So, in the former, many top-wealth people will be recent retirees (with low income), whereas in Europe retirees in the same economic situation are more likely to have low recorded wealth.
(I've just noticed that the chart says 'capital income', not wealth. So, my reasoning only applies if capital income includes income from private pensions).
The entire analysis is done in terms of income. Private pensions do not make almost any difference for homoploutia. Note that to be homoploutic you have to be in top 10% by total income, then also in 10% by capital income, and finally in top 10% by labor income. Typical pensioner who draws his private pension after retirement is not (by definition) going to be in top decile by labor income. So even if his pension (which is unlikely) is so high to place him among top decile by K income, and also among top decile by disposable income, he will not be homoploutic.
«The entire analysis is done in terms of income. Private pensions do not make almost any difference for homoploutia. even if his pension (which is unlikely) is so high to place him among top [...] decile by K income, and also among top decile by disposable income, he will not be homoploutic.»
Such definition is either arbitrary or it has some useful purpose, and my understanding is that the purpose is apparent here:
“The elite will be fully formed and impregnable when perhaps 80 or 90 percent of the richest income decile becomes homoploutic. The class divided society of the yore would disappear by giving way to an elite-ruled society”
That is to point out that paramount and enduring political power might be acquired by homoplutes instead of (or in addition to) the owners of means of production.
It seems to me these are an elite which I think means an aristocracy or at least an oligarchy) rather than a class as they do not share so much material interests but culture and values:
«Why does homoploutia matter? It might seem a welcome development as it erases the class distinction between capital and labor. [...] Three things are linked here: ownership of lots of capital, high level of education, and a highly paid job.»
Also these people tend to intermarry with each other as they socialize in their top universities which are to a large extent their mating grounds. I suspect that you are describing people you are familiar with as for example the top "clerics" of international and national organizations.
«thus, instead of a class-based society of the old capitalism, we now have an elite-ruled society.»
But why would they acquire paramount political power? The big capitalists of the 0.1% acquired it because they can nominate and "sponsor" their "trusties" in positions of economic and political governance, and the middle-class property-owning "semi-proletarian" rentiers of the 20-40% have political power because of their big numbers and activism.
But the homoplutes of the 10% as a rule only manage bureaucracies. My guess therefore is that our blogger expects that managing bureaucracies plus independent wealth (so being “able to maintain its position even if the rate of return on large capitals (like theirs) goes down, or if their particular highly-skilled jobs suddenly pay less”) will be more powerful than control of the means of production of the 0.1% or big numbers and activism of the 20-40%.
Also not clear to me why the owners of the means of production would let the homoplutes take over without first trying to undermine their jobs or reduce their wealth: after all they very successfully smashed the power of the unionized workers since 1979 by wrecking their sources of income (the industries employing them), shrinking their social insurance safety net and immiserating them into precarity.
An empirical contribution to contemporary class analysis. Yet this is not a new theory that challenges Marxian class analysis. Wright himself described simultaneous class locations, as does Marx in Volume 3 of Kapital. Managers perform the work that small capitalists still perform: managing workers. Their huge income still comes from non-managerial, non-capital owning workers. They are a subsumed class location, not productive workers. In addition, the simultaneous class position of manager and owner of capital (means of production) allows them to increase their income and wealth (just like the old capitalists that occupied both class locations). And when these small capitalists cum managers yesterday and today fail in their business, they may redistribute to themselves lower surplus value in terms of "wage income" than even their own productive workers (producers of the surplus value that she/he appropriates and distributes to himself). Many situations are possible in class analysis, but there is no need to call them "elites" instead of classes. Elites should be reserved for networks of individuals from various classes, including prominent cultural leaders, politicians and capitalist/managers, for example (like the so-called Epstein class).
Looking at the LIS data, I don't see such a strong correlation between capitalist development and homoploutia. Would we really call Italy a more "more advanced" capitalist country than Great Britain, Japan, Canada?
The word — homoploutia — will never become widespread. It's too awkward.
And I'm sure you know that what you're describing is normaly called aristocracy. But I'm nor sure why you're carefully avoiding *that* word.
Purely for fun, I'd be interested in the parallel with the previous version of the aristocracy. How are their children raised? Which stories they get to hear and internalize?
Because one of the main features of the aristocracy is that it's hereditary. And it used to be that what the ancestors were doing, perhaps a few hundred years back, was more important than anything else. Because that's what made one better than the rest of the society.
But, at some point in time, that changed. To qoute E. H. Carr:
Belief in dominant importance of heredity was progressive so long as you believe that acquired characteristics were inherited.
When this was rejected, the belief in heredity became reactionary.
Since when were aristocrats people that had a high paying job? This word does not seem to fit
There is an excellent book on this topic of what you’re calling homoploutia: Daniel Markovits’s Meritocracy Trap. His argument is that some of the wealthiest people today are no longer capitalists but “super-ordinate workers” or a new kind of proletariat (lawyers, Wall Street bankers, c-suite executives, doctors, etc). Jacobin interviewed him a few years back: https://jacobin.com/2019/09/meritocracy-trap-inequality-human-capital-markovits
Absolutely. In my forthcoming "The Great Global Transformation" I precisely link homoploutia to meritocracy as excellently described & discussed by Markovits. Here is my review of Markovits's book:
https://brankomilanovic.substack.com/p/ban-this-book
«I precisely link homoploutia to meritocracy as excellently described & discussed by Markovits. Here is my review of Markovits's book»
In that review there is perhaps a terminology ambiguity:
“The economic and cultural divide that has opened between the meritocrats and the middle class feeds the cultural and political wars in the United States.”
That to me seems to use "middle class" in the common "centrist" (and american) sense of "middle *income* class, that is middle 40-60% of the income distribution which in functional terms is the non-supervisory working class; while the homoploutia seems to be in functional terms the upper-middle class of semi-proletarians ("bilocated in class" in political studies) that overlaps with the "petty bourgeoisie".
BTW I think that there are three main uses of "middle class":
* functional: supervisory and professional workers who act as agents of the owners.
* propaganda: middle income people that is the working class (usually but not only "white collar").
* marketing: people with disposable income so able purchase commodities that carry status ("branded").
Ah! Pleasant surprise. Looking forward to reading this...
Not convinced yet. The top decile is very large, heterogeneous and imperfectly representative of what you might call class power. The top 1% gets closer, but with the top .1% we're beginning to get there. Of course, the data may be insufficient, but we don't want to be confined to the lampposts.
I suspect very few billionaires acquired much their income in the form of salaries. They may well have received a big chunk of it from stock options, but I would regard this as functionally "capital" -- the incentives are the same. In any case, in the age of VC the distinction between entrepreneur and "worker" breaks down: what exactly is the relationship between the business founder financed by VC and those that finance them?
This isn't supported by hard empirical data, but when I think in terms of political economy, the economic class with disproportionate political power consists of owners and managers of capital. Not managers in general, but managers specifically of capital, which in financialized enterprises takes in a lot, maybe most, of the top tier. Again, it's ultimately about the deployment of economic power and the incentives that direct it.;
"What is new?" - The only new thing are the simply absurd conclusions drawn from the fact that there always existed what Marx called 'Labor-aristocracy" and what was excellently analyzed by Barbara Ehrenreich in her classic essays about the rise of the PMC class (Professional Managerial Class) in the late 70's. Income based social stratification to use a term by Max Weber - whatever the sources of the income - are static economic snapshots and can in no way explain historical and sociological developments, the dynamics of which are reflected in terms of class as a social relationship. To equate income based social status and its entailing social and political power with surplus seeking exploitation by capitalism is appalling in its ignorance to put it mildly
Labor aristocracy is simply well-paid labor. Such well-paid labor never attained the position of homoploutia b/c the latter requires not only to be among top wage earners, but among top capitalists AND to be in the top by total income. Homoploutia is related, but conceptually entirely different from PMC. Precisely, b/c it is capitalist it supports capitalist virtues which was never obvious for PMC.
I beg to differ. That is a strawman argument and just semantics. Labor aristocracy and homoploutia comes down to the same thing - it is income related disproportionally distributed bourgeois privileges growing out of capitalism as different forms of rewards.
Conceptually regarding the kernel of capital homoploutia is irrelevant. It represents social status, derived from income, whereas capital is always based on explotation, no matter how you slice it. Homoploutia usually is not surplus extraction but a combination of labor income and indirect exploitation via financial assets. It is a bourgeois phenomenon which marx would have called the form of appereance of social prestige.
Its forms are changing with times. It reflects the elitist mechanism of upwards distribution growing out of the changing dynamics of capitalism. Its forms are irrelevant, call it aristocracy, homoploutia, whatever.
The essence of capital on the contrary is capitalist exploitation. Manifestations of social power are always downstream to exploitation, which is the foundation.
Besides, most of that small elite called Homoploutia grew out of the PMC category. Essentially here is no difference between Bezos and Roman Oligarchs, none, not the least bit,if you lift the veil of the form of appereances of capitalist enrichment which Marx did.
Homoploutia members ar simply symptoms of late capitalism but not capitalists. They work and have their money working for them ike everyone who has a savings account and is employed. It just occurs on a larger scale. The share ratio of their income between salary for work and financial gains from assets is a mere nuance. You have to look beyond the phenomenons, like Marx, when he spoke of forms of appreances and fetishism. Homoploutia is just a descriptive construct to invent a naming fitting to modern times. The concept of homoploutia comes down to no more than one of the futile attempts of bourgeois economics to superficially tinkering with effects pf capitalism . The concept is empty and lacks any class dynamics just like PMC, which also needs to be ranked as a identifiable social order among the petty bourgroisie as part of that class.
Capital is a social relation and a flow, not to be confused with lots of money based on high income from diffeent sources, like extraordinarily well paid labor and monetary gains from financial assets. It certainly has an element of rentierism in it. Capital and capitalist in its essence on the contrary thrive on surplus extraction first and foremost in its basic drive to reproduce that extraction mechanism in a variety of forms. Homoploutia comprises skilled money managers in their own interest but not capitalists. Bezos is a capitalist not because of its high income but because of the surplus labor extractive dynamics he represents. calling Homoploutia capitalist is far fetched because members of that stratum still perform work and totally lack what Bezos epitomizes.
The exploitative drive for surplus extraction is the root cause. Everything else, riches, financial asset based wealth and money and the resulting social power are downstream and subordinated to exploitation. The manifestations of the latter a mere social phenomenons. Homoploutia merely describes bourgeois symptoms of different ways of acquiring wealth and not capital, no matter how hard and eloquent you may try to frame the fact of divided income from salaried labor and financial assets as capital. In fact it is just money plain and simple. Homoploutia is just a contemporary form of elitist social power and does not form a separate class no more than PMC does. Both are just different forms of the petty bourgeoisie. There is an irreconcilable separation between labor and capital and class forms its separation line based on property rights and exploitation. Marx was very cleasr about that and his dictum holds. You never can merge labor and capital and every attempt to argue for that is a mere intellectual smokescreen, as there are many these days. You can not merge monetary gains from salaries and interest with capital other than as income, which is not capital. The bearded one had a few remarkable things to say about those futile attempts to justify bourgeois exploitation. His analysis definitely is timeless as long as there is labor exploitation.
The fallcy is to concluding from high income based on financial assets that homoploutia is capitalist. A steady interest income from a savings account does not make someone a capitalist. The whole argument lacks coherence.
Capital accumulation as the core of the flow of capital and its manifestations of a social relation is also completely disregarded. Capital accumulation and hoarding as one of the key functions of money as Marx defined them are diametrically opposed, which might excellently signify the difference between homoploutia and capital.
Take away the capital part and there are laborers. Take away the labor part they are just rich, like rich unemployed persons living off of passive interest income not directly exploiting anybody else’s labor. They might become capitalists if they would directly engage in surplus seeking activities and investment that involves other people‘s work. Once they stop being salaried employees they fall no longer in the category of homoploutia. This highly fabricated category is just another fancy veil that in fact just means what the term says: the same riches with the stress on riches, which in any serious analysis is not to be equated with capital. No more than that, on no account: just riches, not capitalist but rich.
Social differences related from income and lifestyle resulting in status cut across all classes, especially the working class. Regarding the necessary class structures when it comes to analysis of capital, its members remain members of that class despite all diffrerences in appereances. Homoploutia is a social layer just like PMC, but still belonginging to the same class. On that I highly recommend G.E.M. de Ste. Croix - The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. It is an outstanding and excellent analysis of class in antiquity through a marxist lens and a definitive account on the development of class and its entailing social phenomena. Homoploutia in our times might be one of them. It is not capitalist but simply a social phenomenom reflecting bourgeois privileges. To establish an illustrative analogy, upper middle class is a simalar term. used in such context highlighting the differences between social orders and class.
Capital and labor are strictly to be kept apart theoretically regarding value extraction. That fact renders anything said about homoploutia as capital a moot point.
The statistics quoted are for the top 10% but of course the same effect occurs lower down the spectrum. People in the top third (say) of the income distribution are more likely to have had well-off parents who supported their education and gifted them housing capital to live in or to rent out to others. They will be able to save into a better pension invested in stock market wealth.
This influential group will likely oppose increases in both wealth and income taxes and favour austerity. They will campaign mightily against any building development that might undermine the market value of their houses. They will be powerful agents of an economic stagnation that they can afford to protect themselves from. But in so doing they create around them a political climate favourable to far-right demagogy and democratic decline.
Why these richest workers are paid so much?
«Why these richest workers are paid so much?»
Because usually their jobs are also based on positions of rent: for example possession of side-capital like a top degree, a professional license, a disposition to complicity with the owners, being protected from competition by government policy, etc. Many of them are also agents ("trusties") and there is an ancient "sharecropper problem" (agent-principal conflict of interest) which often is resolved in favor of the "sharecroppers" (agents).
Because that is what their employers believe they are worth. Nothing more, nothing less.
Wrong. Because they have the power (pick your sources thereof) to demand it -- it has always been thus.
This is why neoliberalism waged war upon unions (among other ill effects)
Employer is taking advantage from rest of world where he sells his product etc., and pay some small cut to your employee ( I mean the employee image that was in your mind when you wrote this,I hope I am right and you imagined a software engineer)
It is impossible for the working and capitalist classes to merge because class is about the relations of production and not the individual human being itself.
Labor and capital is the ultimate, insuperable contradiction of capitalism. It will never be abolished without the destruction of capitalism.
The in-between classes between those two are indeed optional, and can be destroyed without destroying capitalism. In fact, capitalism becomes more pure as it eliminates those middle classes, so the tendency, as Marx pointed out in Das Kapital, is indeed for capitalism to polarize itself in its two essential classes: proletariat (worker) and capitalist.
So, for example, a worker has some stocks. Is he working class or a capitalist? It depends on what he is in the greater scheme of things, ie from the point of view of the mode of production. In the case of a capitalist who works, this is a simple case of the capitalist working for himself/exploiting himself: he still is a capitalist, his work is just a drop in the ocean of his individual capital. In the case of a capitalist who is indebted to a bank, the profit is divided between interest and profit of enterprise (we still have two capitalist, one above the other).
Either way, it is impossible for a capitalist society to have only worker-capitalists (ie middle class members). A worker with stocks can only sustain such fragile equilibrium because, somewhere, many other workers must be dispossessed (proletarian=one who only has his/her body to sell). The proletarian is the base of these relations of production, in every possible capitalist universe.
》... is indeed for capitalism to polarize itself in its two essential classes: proletariat (worker) and capitalist.《
What do we do with the case when the owner is a pension fund or several pension funds? And it could well be that those funds are managing assets belonging to the working class.
That has always looked like "oh shit, myself from the future is exploiting myself from the present."
The pension fund itself is fictitious capital (financial capital). The director/CEO of the pension fund is a capitalist, or a manager (or both).
This is such the case that, frequently, workers' pension funds clash directly with their own contributors, eg when the director of such pension funds commemorate the rise of their own country's interest rate.
«from the point of view of the mode of production. [...] worker-capitalists (ie middle class members).»
From a functional (“relations of production”) point of view the middle class is called "middle" because it is made of the supervisors who manage other workers on behalf of the capitalists, they are not capitalists themselves *as such*. Their income comes from their work. They are still "downstairs" people like a head butler or a head gardener in a mansion.
«So, for example, a worker has some stocks. Is he working class or a capitalist?»
If middle-class workers acquire capital (thanks to being paid better than other servants so they can save and buy housing etc.) then while they remain "middle class" they also become "semi-proletarian", that is worker-capitalists.
By contrast the case is different for self-employed lawyers: they own some means of production (their government-issued license) and are usually "petty bourgeois" (because as a rule they also employ assistants, juniors, cleaners, ...) that also work on their capital, they are not "semi-proletarians", they are selling a commodity (licensed legal advice).
The classical, Marxist definition of the middle class in capitalism is the managerial class.
In this definition, the lowest manager up to the CEO is middle class.
The key here is that their work is unproductive and their salaries are a portion of the surplus value not lost due to the extra enforced discipline over the productive workers they are overseeing and disciplining.
Aside from the middle class, the only other class of workers that is unproductive, according to Marx, is commerce. Commerce is a special case because, conceptually, it is merely the specialization and unification of the warehouses of the individual industrial capitals.
There is wide consensus nowadays that the middle class as defined in the USA during the Postwar period never existed: it was just a marketing concept.
Excellent reply to debunk bourgeois pseudo-marxism with which liberals more and more try to co-opt a watered down Marx for their hopeless reformist agenda
"Thus, instead of a class-based society of the old capitalism, we now have an elite-ruled society. In their own personae, they transcend the contradiction between capital and labor but achieve this only at the “cost” of distinguishing themselves from the rest of the population, that is by creating an elite sitting atop of society." This sounds as an exageration to me. It seems to me that CEOs, when they used to be only CEOs, were not simple "workers" that faced a contradiciton with capital the same way of workers did, they were agents of capital, agents who organized capital and received in exchange what Marx call something that could be translated to english as "entrepreneurial gain", high salaries payed thanks to the extration of surplus-value. According to Marx, they used to fulfil the functions once fulfiled by individual capitalists. This, along with the raise of stock companies, says Marx, certainly changes the class structure of capitalist society, but does not transcend the contradiction between capital and labour, because capital is a social relationship, not a thing. The fact that these guys become so rich at the point of becoming capitalists themselves does not seem to me to transcend the contradiciton between capital and labor. Actually, the contradiction may be reinforced once they are at the same time people who accumulated through the direct extraction of surplus-value and getting themselves high salaries. I totally agree that this is a novelty, but I am not coinvicend that this novelty transcend the contradiction between capital and labor. I think that some considerations about class theory as developed by Eric Olin Wiright would be very interesting here.
«highly-skilled people who have attended the best schools and probably feel to have deserved their superior position. [...] Three things are linked here: ownership of lots of capital, high level of education, and a highly paid job.»
BTW this is pretty much what is meant in the USA and UK by fake-populists as the "sneering rootless liberal elites" who look down on "middle-income nationalist workers".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/11/yes-i-am-part-of-the-liberal-metropolitan-elite-and-im-bloody-pr/
“Yes, I am part of the liberal metropolitan elite, and I'm bloody proud of it”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/717699/Theresa-May-blast-distasteful-liberals-mock-patriotic-Britons-Tory-migration-David-Cameron
“Days of sneering liberal elite mocking patriotic Brits are numbered warns May [...] as she attempts to reach out to the “working class”.”
«But the managerial revolution was overblown. It never happened and it is not happening. Managers as such never succeeded in creating a third class.»
Indeed managers are still part of the working class: their role is on behalf of their "masters" (upper-class) to act as "trusties" (middle-class) to supervise the "servants" (working-class) and to repress the "residuum" (under-class, "lumpen-proletariat").
«What happened instead, as I argued in my 2019 book and several new papers confirm, is the rise of a homoploutic elite in the United States, in particular, and also in other rich capitalist economies.»
That seems to be what used to be called "semi-proletarian": the category that derives income from both work and capital (or at the other end both free labour and serf labour). Note: "petty bourgeois" persons like restaurant owners often work in the business they own so can also be semi-proletarian but "petty bourgeois" is not the same as "semi-proletarian".
«They may be financial sector CEOs, engineers, doctors, software developers (and hence receiving high salaries) and at the same time having large financial wealth that generates sufficiently high capital income to place them at the top of capital income distribution.»
In many "western" countries the critical element is house ownership (in desirable areas), and in the USA also 401k stock ownership. That is what makes "semi-proletarians" feel they are "masters" and that their interests are aligned with the upper-class even if they are merely middle-class.
«the percentage of the people in the top income decile who are homoploutic: the share ranges from almost 30 percent in the United Stats and Italy to 16 percent in Japan and South Korea. data for China in [...] at 32 percent. [...] The elite will be fully formed and impregnable when perhaps 80 or 90 percent of the richest income decile becomes homoploutic. [...] an elite-ruled society»
That means rising from around from 3% to 8-9% of the total; the percentage of house owners (in desirable areas) is much higher, around 20-40%, and matters far more politically than the percentage of the "homoploutic" in the top decile. But also close to 100% of the top decile own property (usually more than one), so on that account the top decile is already "homoploutic".
Since Reagan and Thatcher we have had several decades of mass rentierism and the "centrist" politics that come with mass rentierism. The semi-proletarian that are mass rentiers believe themselves to be "elite" and vote (and donate) accordingly.
While it is interesting that the "homoploutic" narrowly defined are also rising recently among the top decile, sort of achieving perhaps greater importance than the "petty bourgeois", I think that the big story is the mass rentierism of the house owning "semi-proletarians" and that is not a new development.
What is curious to me is that mass rentierism is a big deal that has been obvious for decades and has strongly shaped politics, but it is not a popular topic on the left (but it is celebrated on the right). Member of professions, politicians, party officials, intellectuals, school heads, trade unionists, government managers, professors all belong to the house owning "semi proletarians".
"Percentage of people who own a house in a desirable area" seems very arbitrary. It obviously depends entirely on a completely random cutoff. I also don't think that everyone with a house and a 401k feels that their interest is aligned with the upper class.
«In many "western" countries the critical element is house ownership (in desirable areas)»
If the owner still works then she is a "semi-proletarian", if retired she is a full "petty bourgeois". Illustrated here by "The Economist":
https://blissex.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/polihousingoldpeoplebigmoney.jpg
A blog comment by a member of the UK New Labour Party:
“I raised the problematic policy on my CLP Facebook group. I was stunned by the support for the policy from the countless landlords who were Party members! "I can't afford to give my tenants a rent holiday" "This is my pension, I'll go bust" etc etc. Absolutely stunning. I had no idea how many private landlords there were in the Party. Kinda explains a lot...”
«and in the USA also 401k stock ownership.»
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0903/0903norquistinterview.htm
«The growth of the investor class -- those 70 per cent of voters who own stock and are more opposed to taxes and regulations on business as a result -- is strengthening the conservative movement. More gun owners, fewer labor union members, more homeschoolers, more property owners and a dwindling number of FDR-era Democrats all strengthen the conservative movement versus the Democrats. [...]
But going into November, what actually saved it for the Republicans was the investor vote, which went heavily R. Why? One, they didn't blame Bush for the collapse of the bubble.
They were mad at having lower stock prices and 401(k)s, but they didn't say Bush did this and that caused this. Secondly, the Democratic solution was to sic the trial lawyers on Enron and finish it off. No no no no no. We want our market caps to go back up, not low. [...]
Now if you say we're going to smash the big corporations, 60-plus percent of voters say "That's my retirement you're messing with. I don't appreciate that". And the Democrats have spent 50 years explaining that Republicans will pollute the earth and kill baby seals to get market caps higher. And in 2002, voters said, “We're sorry about the seals and everything but we really got to get the stock market up.»
The post is about the US, but states that the development of a homoploutic elite is taking place across advanced economies. Looking at Germany, the puzzling thing about this observation is that a party which would be closest to the (economic) preferences of an emerging homoploutic elite, notably the FDP, has been quite volatile in its electoral successes over the last two decades. (Then again, one could argue that the emerging elite-ruled order transcends the existing party system...but that would raise the question what a supposedly emerging elite-ruled order would look like?).
one could even question whether a class-based order (as opposed to an elite-ruled order) ever existed in advanced economies in the first place. Bernard Manin argued (in principles of representative government) that representative democracy always was - in theory of not in practice - largely elite-based.
«a party which would be closest to the (economic) preferences of an emerging homoploutic elite, notably the FDP, has been quite volatile in its electoral successes over the last two decades.»
Like the SDP or LibDems in the UK: "homoplutes" like social leftism and economic rightism, and that is a rare combination of preferences. So "homoplutes" (like the whigs did in the UK) tend to infiltrate and take over both parties of the left (Blair in the UK, Clinton in the USA) and the right (Cameron in the UK, Romney in the USA). So socialist/social-democratic parties have a disproportionate number of "whigs" in their leadership and rightist/conservative parties too.
«Bernard Manin argued (in principles of representative government) that representative democracy always was - in theory of not in practice - largely elite-based.»
If by that he means "heavily infiltrated by whigs" indeed. Anyhow as to representative democracy some quotes:
ttps://archive.org/stream/onpoweritsnature00injouv/onpoweritsnature00injouv_djvu.txt
Bertrand de Jouvenel "On power and its nature"
“There is more in common between two deputies, one of whom is a Communist, than between two Communists, one of whom is a deputy”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/democracy.htm
“Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor. [...] We are governed (and our state is “knocked into shape”) by bourgeois bureaucrats, by bourgeois members of parliament, by bourgeois judges”
The admission fee top the top income/wealth deciles is not too daunting.
- Wealth: UK/US 1.6m USD, Germany/AUS 1m
- Income: USD 90k , in US 180K
Theoretially, one would check the values now with the median and the top 1% and see if there have bee relative changes over the years The wealth in many district can be attained by the inheritance of a standard free-standing dwelling. Some may have boght themselves a flat before that happened
On those type of figures I would be reluctant to call members of the top deciles automatically elites.
.
Bit of a stretch to call a CEO "a worker".
How much of the cross-national pattern is due to different forms of pension entitlement? For example, in Australia a large part of pension entitlements are held in socially-mandated private accounts (included in wealth surveys). In Europe, there are more generous pension entitlements, but these are not included in wealth calculations. So, in the former, many top-wealth people will be recent retirees (with low income), whereas in Europe retirees in the same economic situation are more likely to have low recorded wealth.
(I've just noticed that the chart says 'capital income', not wealth. So, my reasoning only applies if capital income includes income from private pensions).
The entire analysis is done in terms of income. Private pensions do not make almost any difference for homoploutia. Note that to be homoploutic you have to be in top 10% by total income, then also in 10% by capital income, and finally in top 10% by labor income. Typical pensioner who draws his private pension after retirement is not (by definition) going to be in top decile by labor income. So even if his pension (which is unlikely) is so high to place him among top decile by K income, and also among top decile by disposable income, he will not be homoploutic.
«The entire analysis is done in terms of income. Private pensions do not make almost any difference for homoploutia. even if his pension (which is unlikely) is so high to place him among top [...] decile by K income, and also among top decile by disposable income, he will not be homoploutic.»
Such definition is either arbitrary or it has some useful purpose, and my understanding is that the purpose is apparent here:
“The elite will be fully formed and impregnable when perhaps 80 or 90 percent of the richest income decile becomes homoploutic. The class divided society of the yore would disappear by giving way to an elite-ruled society”
That is to point out that paramount and enduring political power might be acquired by homoplutes instead of (or in addition to) the owners of means of production.
It seems to me these are an elite which I think means an aristocracy or at least an oligarchy) rather than a class as they do not share so much material interests but culture and values:
«Why does homoploutia matter? It might seem a welcome development as it erases the class distinction between capital and labor. [...] Three things are linked here: ownership of lots of capital, high level of education, and a highly paid job.»
Also these people tend to intermarry with each other as they socialize in their top universities which are to a large extent their mating grounds. I suspect that you are describing people you are familiar with as for example the top "clerics" of international and national organizations.
«thus, instead of a class-based society of the old capitalism, we now have an elite-ruled society.»
But why would they acquire paramount political power? The big capitalists of the 0.1% acquired it because they can nominate and "sponsor" their "trusties" in positions of economic and political governance, and the middle-class property-owning "semi-proletarian" rentiers of the 20-40% have political power because of their big numbers and activism.
But the homoplutes of the 10% as a rule only manage bureaucracies. My guess therefore is that our blogger expects that managing bureaucracies plus independent wealth (so being “able to maintain its position even if the rate of return on large capitals (like theirs) goes down, or if their particular highly-skilled jobs suddenly pay less”) will be more powerful than control of the means of production of the 0.1% or big numbers and activism of the 20-40%.
Also not clear to me why the owners of the means of production would let the homoplutes take over without first trying to undermine their jobs or reduce their wealth: after all they very successfully smashed the power of the unionized workers since 1979 by wrecking their sources of income (the industries employing them), shrinking their social insurance safety net and immiserating them into precarity.
An empirical contribution to contemporary class analysis. Yet this is not a new theory that challenges Marxian class analysis. Wright himself described simultaneous class locations, as does Marx in Volume 3 of Kapital. Managers perform the work that small capitalists still perform: managing workers. Their huge income still comes from non-managerial, non-capital owning workers. They are a subsumed class location, not productive workers. In addition, the simultaneous class position of manager and owner of capital (means of production) allows them to increase their income and wealth (just like the old capitalists that occupied both class locations). And when these small capitalists cum managers yesterday and today fail in their business, they may redistribute to themselves lower surplus value in terms of "wage income" than even their own productive workers (producers of the surplus value that she/he appropriates and distributes to himself). Many situations are possible in class analysis, but there is no need to call them "elites" instead of classes. Elites should be reserved for networks of individuals from various classes, including prominent cultural leaders, politicians and capitalist/managers, for example (like the so-called Epstein class).
Looking at the LIS data, I don't see such a strong correlation between capitalist development and homoploutia. Would we really call Italy a more "more advanced" capitalist country than Great Britain, Japan, Canada?