DEFINITION OF ECONOMIC ELITE

I frequently use the term economic elite synonymously with Republican. I conflate words like upper class, conservative, leader, top of the hierarchy dominance chain, and boss, to describe the “perception” people have of a certain group of personalities and of their own place in those groups.  Of course, the other end of the spectrum we describe as the liberals, the followers, the lower class, etc with all gradations in between. These are perceptions and it is important to note that we often confuse perceptions with reality.

During reconstruction after the civil war and the emancipation of slaves, the divisions of society were stark. Former slaves were free but not equal even if legal documents said they were. In other words, society codified hierarchy dominance among free men, the legal framework is the only reason I used this example. There were laws dealing with ‘slave verses non-slave’ as long as there were salves and slave owners but none that I am aware of dealing with divisions among free people. I know of no other situation where a large social group wrote “peck order” into the law as it related to free men. The exception was Nazi Germany, which is an abominable anomaly.

In a free society, such as we have in our democracy, we chose our leaders by voting. All you have to do to qualify to be leader is membership of that society. Many people feel they were the exclusively the ones that should choose their leaders even if they did not want to be the leaders themselves. The perception, again it is only a perception, was that only certain ones among us were smart enough to do that. The antithesis is that you are too dumb to know whom to vote in as a leader. The question we face every day in modern politics is where we draw that line; that really is the heart of practical Democratic and Republican philosophy. Liberals know they are in the majority if there is no division in society—if everyone can voter. In contrast, conservatives are only in the majority among the well-to-do but because of the nature of society, the upper class is much smaller than the working class: one general and 1000 soldiers, one boss and 100 workers; therefore, their numbers fail to be enough to elect one of their own if they are forthright about what they believe. All elected politicians, again if they are forthright, are closer to the center of the political spectrum than they would be if they did not have to be elected. Politics like biology does not tolerate extremes.

Some of the “elite”, as they describe their perception of themselves, used crude depictions expressed in pejorative terms such as white trash or slum dweller for those they consider inferior, that is do not qualify as peers. They even extend that feeling of inferiority to the “working class”; thus, sneering at people who “work for a living”. One of the obvious bases for judging economic success is by knowing where a person lives. The nature or Republican voter suppression efforts tell us that. If you have to travel far, wait in a long line, or can only vote during working hours, Republicans operatives have told you that you are not “economically elite” and probably should not even be allowed to vote. The reason I think our politics are innate is that some of these people after waiting in the rain for hours will enter the voting booth and vote for a Republican.

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