#We also have access to informal power in the forms of strikes collective bargaining etc | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

plotholes-and-spellingerrors · 2 months ago

Text

Addendum: Even when we talk about "The 1%", that means the top 1% of wealth; in the US, that's about $5.8 million https://content.knightfrank.com/resources/knightfrank.com/wealthreport/the-wealth-report-2024.pdf#page=15... which means that 99% of the US population fits within about 1.16% of one pixel.

But also... 1% of the US population is around 3.4 million AKA a little less than the population of Los Angeles CA https://www.census.gov/popclock/. But if you look at that graph, the range from $500 million to Elon Musk, that is, almost 100× the wealth necessary to be in the 1%, and the entirety of the graph minus 1 pixel, represents fewer than 2,500 people. That's 0.00074% of the US population. There are more people in Drumright city, Oklahoma than people who have more than $500 million https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-total-cities-and-towns.html.

I'm sure the good people of Drumright, OK are fine, upstanding citizens, but would you call it a "democracy" if the political system were designed so that the mayor of Drumright could convince California to kill funding for public transit or take over one of the most popular websites? If about 15 Drumrightians could individually dictate global markets, take over important newspapers, and influence national economic policy or public opinion about trans people just by posting about it online, all without holding public office?

Yet we think it's cool and normal to organize our political and economic systems so that about 2,500 can absolutely hold that kind of power because they have the money to do so. AND it's a convincing argument for a lot of people that laws that impoverish them should be enacted because maybe they'll be in the 1% later, at which point the laws will make them wealthier.

"It turns out that if you put Elon Musk on the graph, almost the entire US population is crammed into a vertical bar, one pixel wide. Each pixel is $500 million wide, illustrating that $500 million essentially rounds to zero from the perspective of the wealthiest Americans."

- Ken Shirriff, Wealth distribution in the United States

#I'm just venting don't mind me #BTW this is not an argument against voting #Billionaires have a lot of informal political power #but that doesn't mean you shouldn't employ any formal avenue of political power that's afforded you #however limited it may be. Power that you never use is power that you don't have.#Billionaire power is informal but very direct and can be employed by individuals (though there's always class solidarity among the wealthy)#Whereas our power - though formal - is indirect and diffuse and requires mass coordinated action and has limited and indirect effects #which is very frustrating and disheartening at times but should never be conceded regardless.#We also have access to informal power in the forms of strikes collective bargaining etc #but that's a different story and still requires mass coordinated action.

13K notes · View notes