  Traditionally when talking about money as it relates to social class, people refer to an income bracket

I think this article is worth the read for the interesting data it highlights with the arbitrary framework, but it's hard to ignore the elephant in the room: the author's "traditional" experience here excludes a huge part of the economic thought of the last 200 years.

I know this isn't exactly a forum predisposed to Marx, but I would encourage even the most fervent anti-communists to take some time to appreciate his economic work on a scientific level. Wealth is absolutely more important than income when analyzing society, because a certain amount of wealth makes one a "capitalist" (in a literal sense, not an ideological one). Capitalists live a life of luxury without working, and they are explicitly+intentionally tasked with the lions share of social responsibility (or, more pejoratively, social power).

TL;DR: You don't need to be a Marxist to appreciate the utility of labor-based class analysis in our society! Given that the traditional SV goal is to become a capitalist as quickly as possible ("FIRE"), we'd do better to discuss this stuff more frequently...

▲ saulpw 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

(author here)

Thanks for this comment. I am remiss to not directly address how this ties into Marxist theory. I'll consider how to add references on the next rewrite.

A key point in Mag Wealth is that there are several meaningfully different levels of both labor and capital. "Capital" is generally regarded as $^6 and up, whereas "labor" is below $^6. But just as there's a huge difference in the lives of a waitress vs lawyer (though both are "labor"), there's also a huge difference in the lives of a millionaire vs a billionaire (though both are capital). There are people who are unable to work and have even less opportunity than a minimum-wage worker; are they "labor", or maybe we should call them something else, like "destitute"? And there are people who have hundreds of billions of dollars who buy and control institutions of power; are they "capital" or do they become effectively "sovereign"?

	▲	kuerbel 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I would still refer to them as capital. They might have more money than the gdp of a small state but that doesn't mean they are a state.

▲ kuerbel 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have a feeling you'll be downvoted, but you are correct. Marx was an economist before he was a political commentator, or philosophist, or activist or whatever you want to call him.

▲ thrance 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I found that if you omit to mention "Marx" from your comment and replace "Labor/Capital" by "Workers/Billionaires", people will generally upvote.