Mark Thoma sends us to: Stumbling and Mumbling: The 1% vs the 0.1%: "Many of you might react to the FT’s story about the 'squeezed 1%' by getting out the world’s smallest violin. I think this is a mistake. It reminds us that the damage done by inequality extends beyond the general social and economic harm. It hurts even those who are a long way up the income ladder...

...First, some statistical context. Someone at the bottom of the top percentile of incomes is on about £120,000 a year. The top 0.1%, however, gets over £500,000. A very well-paid head-teacher, professor or NHS consultant might just get into the top 1%, but the top 0.1% comprises bankers, very successful entrepreneurs or bosses of big firms. As the IFS’s Paul Johnson says, “someone ‘only’ at the top 1% is much more like the average person than they are like someone at top 0.1%.” This gulf between the 1% and 0.1% hurts the 1% in three ways. One is simply that they are aware of it. For the poor, the rich are out of sight, out of mind: in fact, they grossly under-estimate just how much the rich make. The 1%, however, see it more clearly.... A second effect... is the subject of the FT’s article....

The difference between the 1% and the 0.1% doesn’t, however, lie merely in what they can afford. There is perhaps an even bigger difference. A man (it’s usually a man) on £500,000 can reasonably look forward to quitting work or downshifting unless he has arranged his affairs especially badly. Somebody on a low six-figure salary, however, cannot. Instead, they often face years of stress–exacerbated by managerialism’s deprofessionalization of erstwhile professional jobs and to the fact that their inability to afford homes in central London condemns them to long and stressful commutes....

In many cases–not all but many–even those on six-figure salaries are in subordinate and stressful positions. They are objectively working class, however posh they might fancy themselves to be. Which is why we need class politics. Whereas identity politics risks splitting us into mutually hostile ghettos, proper class politics has the potential to unite us–well most of us. One of the great marvels of capitalism is that we are so incapable of seeing this....


#noted

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