Where's the scholarship on this? I'd like to see some evidence. Because it's often claimed, and of course there are examples and thousands of anecdotes, but I have a hunch it's complete nonsense -- at least when talking about what we're discussing here, which is the 1%.

It's a lot like talk about voter fraud -- yes, it happens, but so rarely as to be imperceptible. — Xtrix

I was just talking about people advancing classes, not necessarily into the 1%. If someone who's lower middle makes it into the middle class I would count that as class mobility, as well as those who jumps from poor to lower middle. I'm definitely not talking about the poor jumping into the 1%. It is feasible to go from upper middle to 1% though.

I didn’t assume that just because of that question, but because of the impression I get from your other posts in this thread. — Pfhorrest

Like what?

True, but still interesting. — Xtrix

Actually it’s not interesting, it’s the same thing over and over.

On the basis that someone might be interested in who these people are I took one name at random.

“ Larry Ellison was born in New York City, to an unwed Jewish mother.[5][6][7][8] His biological father was an Italian-American United States Army Air Corps pilot. After Ellison contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother gave him to her aunt and uncle for adoption.[8] He did not meet his biological mother again until he was 48.[9]

Ellison moved to Chicago's South Shore, then a middle-class neighborhood. He remembers his adoptive mother as warm and loving, in contrast to his austere, unsupportive, and often distant adoptive father, who had chose the name Ellison to honor his point of entry into the United States, Ellis Island. Louis Ellison was a government employee who had made a small fortune in Chicago real estate, only to lose it during the Great Depression.[8]

Although Ellison was raised in a Reform Jewish home by his adoptive parents, who attended synagogue regularly, he remained a religious skeptic. Ellison states: "While I think I am religious in one sense, the particular dogmas of Judaism are not dogmas I subscribe to. I don't believe that they are real. They're interesting stories. They're interesting mythology, and I certainly respect people who believe these are literally true, but I don't. I see no evidence for this stuff." At age thirteen, Ellison refused to have a bar mitzvah celebration.[10] Ellison says that his fondness for Israel is not connected to religious sentiments, but rather due to the innovative spirit of Israelis in the technology sector.[11]

Ellison attended South Shore High School in Chicago[12] and later was admitted to University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and was enrolled as a premed student.[12] At Illinois, he was named science student of the year[13][14] but later withdrew without taking final exams after his sophomore year, because his adoptive mother had just died. After spending the summer of 1966 in California, he then attended the University of Chicago for one term, studying physics and mathematics.[12] He did not take any exams and at Chicago he first encountered computer design. In 1966, aged 22, he moved to Berkeley, California.” Wikiodia

This is not hard to do.

Sheldon Gary Adelson was born in 1933 and grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, the son of Sarah (née Tonkin) and Arthur Adelson. His father was a cab driver[10] His father's family was of Ukrainian Jewish and Lithuanian Jewish ancestry.[11] His mother immigrated from England, and Adelson claimed that his grandfather was a Welsh coal miner.[12] His father drove a taxi, and his mother ran a knitting shop.[13]

An entrepreneur is born with the mentality to take risks, though there are several important characteristics: courage, faith in yourself, and above all, even when you fail, to learn from failure and get up and try again.
–Sheldon Adelson, 2013[14]
He started his business career at the age of 12, when he borrowed $200 from his uncle (or $2,740 in 2017 dollars) and purchased a license to sell newspapers in Boston.[15] Aged 16 in 1948, he then borrowed $10,000 (or $102,349 in 2017 dollars) from his uncle to start a candy-vending-machine business.[16] He attended the City College of New York, but did not graduate,[17] and attended trade school in a failed attempt to become a court reporter, then subsequently joined the army.[18]

After being discharged from the army, he established a business selling toiletry kits, then started another business named De-Ice-It which sold a chemical spray to help clear frozen windshields.[19] In the 1960s, he started a charter tours business.[10] He soon became a millionaire, although by his 30s he had built and lost his fortune twice. Over the course of his business career, Adelson has created almost 50 of his own businesses, making him a serial entrepreneur.[20] Wikipedia

Carlos Slim

“ Slim was born on January 28, 1940, in Mexico City,[10] to Julián Slim Haddad (born Khalil Salim Haddad Aglamaz) and Linda Helú Atta, both Maronite Christians from Lebanon.[11][12][13] He decided at a young age that he wanted to be a businessman,[4][14] and received business lessons from his father, who taught him finance, management and accounting, teaching him how to read financial statements as well as the importance of keeping accurate financial records.[15]

At the age of 11, Slim invested in a government savings bond that taught him about the concept of compound interest. He eventually saved every financial and business transaction he made into a personal ledger book, which he still keeps.[16] At the age of 12, he made his first stock purchase, of shares in a Mexican bank.[17] By the age of 15, Slim had become a shareholder in Mexico's largest bank.[9] At the age of 17, he earned 200 pesos a week working for his father's company.[18] He went on to study civil engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he also concurrently taught algebra and linear programming.[19][20][21]

Though Slim was a civil engineering major, he also displayed an interest in economics. He took economics courses in Chile once he finished his engineering degree.[14] Graduating as a civil engineering major, Slim has stated that his mathematical ability and his background of linear programming was a key factor in helping him gain an edge in the business world, especially when reading financial statements.[15][22][23]” Wikipedia

All I know is their crap smells the same as ours and are ultimately subject to the same laws governing life and death. — Outlander

Well that doesn’t tell you anything, does it?

I wonder if anyone has read or researched extensively who exactly these people are and if there are trends in their philosophies or religious outlooks. — Xtrix

It might be interesting to consider Calvinism

“ The Protestant work ethic, the Calvinist work ethic,[1] or the Puritan work ethic[2] is a work ethic concept in theology, sociology, economics and history which emphasizes that hard work, discipline, and frugality[3] are a result of a person's subscription to the values espoused by the Protestant faith, particularly Calvinism.

The phrase was initially coined in 1904–1905[a] by Max Weber in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[4] Weber asserted that Protestant ethics and values along with the Calvinist doctrine of asceticism and predestination gave birth to capitalism.” Wikipedia

A great site where you see who actually are the 1% top income by profession can be seen here. — ssu

The OP is about wealth rather than income.

Income is going to be largely meritocratic and deserved you would hope. But wealth goes to being part of the rentier class.

So apples and oranges.

I didn’t assume that just because of that question, but because of the impression I get from your other posts in this thread.
— Pfhorrest

Like what? — Brett

Your general stance of seeming to think that the super-rich got there by meritocratic means would suggest a likelihood that you don’t believe that there are governmental factors systemically favoring the already-rich, and so that you are probably okay with and support the systemic factors that do in fact favor the already-rich, like the enforcement of contracts of rent and interest.

But do please let me know if I was wrong and you instead agree with my critique of rent and interest.

Your general stance of seeming to think that the super-rich got there by meritocratic means would suggest a likelihood that you don’t believe that there are governmental factors systemically favoring the already-rich, and so that you are probably okay with and support the systemic factors that do in fact favor the already-rich, like the enforcement of contracts of rent and interest. — Pfhorrest

You need to show me instead of telling me.

I’m responding to the OP itself, which is who are the 1%?

You need to show me instead of telling me.

I’m responding to the OP itself, which is who are the 1%? — Brett

Yes, and it's your answers in admiration of them that make me anticipate your opinions on the institutes of capitalism:

1: They’re very hard workers

2: They’re very good a setting an objective and then making a plan to get there

3: They’re very good at projecting into the future

4: They’re very adaptable

5: Many of them are very innovative

6: They’re very good at choosing people to work with, understanding them, motivating them

7: They inspire people within their circle

8: They have a through understanding of the world they’re operating in

9: They’re very good at networking — Brett

This isn’t admiration. It’s an attempt to work out what sort of people they are. I also posted the negative aspects of such people.

A free market is one in which all trades are uncoerced. — Pfhorrest

The question I'd ask is whether this still is a market. Common definitions of markets are very vague and generalised, but they're usually distinguished from gift economies. That is, systems of exchange where goods and services are exchanged based on non-commercial principles, according to needs and wants rather than monetary value. This would seem the quintessential form of a non-coercive economy.

In a market, where prices are set either by supply and demand, or at least some material consideration, there is always the possibility of one person being forced into a contract by circumstance, without any practical choice.

I consider certain kinds of contract, including those of rent and interest, to be coercive because rather than just agreeing to owe some capital or labor in exchange for some other capital or labor, they require you reflectively agree to agree to owe more, and not even in exchange for anything more, just in "exchange" for the other party allowing you to keep what they've already given you. It's in the same category as selling oneself into slavery: it's giving up not just a first-order liberty (by taking on an obligation) or claim (by transferring property), but a second-order immunity (from having new obligations placed on oneself, or one's property transferred away from oneself). You can't freely give up your freedom like that; and it's not even really a trade at all, which are entirely on a first-order level. — Pfhorrest

These considerations would mainly apply to compound interest though, wouldn't they? A fixed interest rate, as the Roman Interesse, is similar to the profit a trader makes on a deal. It's payment for loosing access to the good, and therefore trading opportunities.

Rent can also similarly be considered a payment for the person owning the capital to reimburse for the loss of ability to otherwise use it. This only seems a problem when it applies to your essentials for living, such as shelter, and when capital is owned for the sole purpose of renting it, at which point the above justification for rent stops working.

A market with no enforcement of contracts at all would be strictly freer, yes. Though I'm not sure it would be strictly better; I think some contracts are morally justifiable. Some narrow limitations on freedom are better than the alternative: I shouldn't be free to punch you in the face, for example, or to burn down your house (even if nobody's in it). — Pfhorrest

Well, I disagree in principle to any notion of freedom that includes the "freedom to punch someone in the face". Historically, such a conception of freedom is linked to the slave holders freedom (dominion) over slaves, and shouldn't be the basis for the relations of equals. But that is perhaps the subject for another thread.

And yeah, not only the Islamic world of the middle ages but much of it today, as well as the Catholic world of the middle ages, have/had strict bans on usury, and I think that's great, except that they had a huge gaping hole: they only cared about money-lending, not any other kind of capital-lending. Renting out housing, for example, is perfectly okay by them. So there are convoluted contracts involving a combination of money lent "interest-free", property rental, and insurance, which replicate the effects of money lending at interest, and circumvent the whole ban, making the whole thing pretty toothless. — Pfhorrest

Yes, I guess the holes come from the fact that renting out housing wasn't really something the religious movements first cared about, since they mostly originated outside of urban environments where such practices by and large didn't exist. The popular movements of the time were much more concerned with people loosing their freedom, becoming debt peons, due to interest bearing loans.

In my readings, few questions impressed me as the one that gives the title to the second part of José Ortega y Gasset’s La Rebelión de las Masas: “Quién manda en el mundo?”

The philosopher did not formulate it in a metaphysical sense, where it could be answered by something like “God”, “chance”, “fatality”, but in a geopolitical sense, and came to the conclusion that it was a pity that Europe had lost its position, leading the way to Russia and the United States.

The answer seemed out of place with the question. States, nations, governments and continents do not rule. The bosses are the individuals and groups that control them. Before geo-politics comes tout court politics. And then everything gets complicated formidably. It is easy to see which states or countries prevail over others. But finding out who really rules in one state or country — and through it in others — is a more daunting intellectual challenge than the usual political analyst can imagine.

The verb “command” comes from the Latin manus dare: the commander lends his means of action (his “hand”) to others to do something he has thought. A ruler gives orders to his subordinates, but upon closer examination you will see that only very rare rulers in history — a Napoleon, a Stalin, a Reagan — were themselves the creators of the ideas they came up with. Early theorists of the modern state got it right when they invented the term “executive power”: the man of government is usually the executor
of ideas that he did not conceive of, nor would he have the ability — or the time — to conceive. And those who conceived these ideas were the same ones who gave him the means to reach the government to realize them. Who are they?

Applying the question to the specific case of the United States, the sociologist Charles Wright Mills, one of the New Left mentors, published in 1956 the book that would become a classic: The Power Elite. The answer he found took the form of a complicated plot of groups, families, businesses, official and unofficial secret services, sects, clubs, churches, and ostentatious and discreet personal relationship circles, including lovers and call girls. The political class, which culminated in the person of the nominal
ruler, appeared there as the foam on the surface of dark waters. Mills was obviously on the right track. But he died in 1962 and did not have the opportunity to witness a phenomenon that he himself helped produce: the New Left itself became the power elite and lost all interest in “transparency.” On the contrary: it has worked its opacity to the point of having placing a complete stranger in the presidency of the most powerful country in the world and surrounding it with a protective wall that blocks every attempt to find out who it is, what it has done, who it is with, and what interests it represents. If you want an idea of what the power elite is doing in the United States, you need to look for information at the other
end of the ideological spectrum: conservatives are the current heirs to the tradition of study inaugurated by Wright Mills. It is thanks to them that today the fabian globalist elite, the living nucleus of power behind virtually all western governments, has become visible in its composition and in details of its modus operandi to the point of near obscenity, involuntarily comical the insistence of some in calling it “secret power”. Press enter on google for the words “Council on Foreign Relations”, “Bilderberg”, “Trilateral” and the like, and you will get more information than your neurons will be able to process over the next ten years — information whose level of credibility ranges from scientific evidence to
top-down invention.

By contrast, little or almost nothing is known about the deep sources of power in Russia, China, and the Islamic countries. Even the descriptions we have of the visible ruling class in these regions of the globe are schematic and superficial, without comparison to the meticulous Who’s Who of the
western elite. This is easily explained by the difference in access to information sources. It is one thing to search western archives and libraries, under the protection of democratic laws and institutions, and even in the US to break through the barrier of official ill through the Freedom of Information Act. It is completely different in trying to guess what is passing behind the impenetrable walls of the Russian-Chinese establishment. Neither the KGB nor China’s intelligence services have ever given access to
independent researchers. Even the archives of the USSR Communist Party closed again after a brief period of tolerance, motivated not by any sudden love of freedom, but by the illusory conviction, soon denied, that western researchers were mostly sympathetic to the Soviet regime.

In the Islamic world, beneath the ruling class and the clutter of terrorist groups stretches an unfathomable network of esoteric organizations, some millennials, whose power of influence is vastly varied from country to country and from time to time. These organizations, which constitute the
spiritual core of Islam, the profound assurance of its civilizational unity and, in the long run, the condition for the possibility of worldwide Islamic expansion, remain perfectly unknown to western political analysts,
journalists or even scholars. The difference in visibility between the big contending globalist schemes is
a source of catastrophic errors in describing the power conflict in the world.

Also, at the beginning of the 20th century, England not only provoked the First World War, having in mind to destroy its imperialist competitor (Germany), but later prolonged the war by three and a half years more.

Moreover, the organization of this plan was the work of a secret society composed of people from the nobility, great capitalists and a mega intellectual named Alfred Milner, who although he had no money was really the boss of the thing because he was the most intelligent. And the aim of this society was to create the conditions for the Anglo-Saxon race to dominate the world. Not only was it a mega imperialist plan, it also ushered in the era of genocide. Because in the war they waged against the boers in South Africa, despite the fact that later they wanted to agree to a surrender, just like Kitchener, the british commander in charge, an instruction came from Milner and others in the secret society that he should kill until the last, so it was evidently a war of extermination.

I suggest you reading: “Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War” by Gerry Docherty and James MacGregor, and “The Anglo-American Establishment” by Carroll Quigley (Quigley was Bill Clinton’s history professor, and wrote until then the most important book on the globalist elite that is Tragedy and Hope, in which he defends the globalist elite, he just didn’t want it to be secret)

Personal experience would show you. I can assure you, there are people who were born very rich, who have received rubber stamp degrees from prestigious universities, who hold high income positions, but whom I wouldn't trust to stack rocks correctly.

http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/neighborhoods/

This has a county by county level map that shows the percentage chance that a child born in the lowest 20% of income will make it to the top 20%. Even poorly preforming counties still have 1/25 poor children making it to the top, so there is mobility, although perfect mobility would be 1/5.

Of course this is longitudinal data, so it's looking at older Millennials. In fact, social mobility has been trending downward due to a number of factors. The simplest being that exploding inequality means the difference between the top and bottom are further to travel.

Things are worse now than this map lets on.

Notably, the deeply Republican South has the absolute worst mobility. This does not change controlling for race. Whites are less socially mobile in the South.

Neither is the highly liberal coastal regions the most mobile. That tends to be the Mountain states. This is probably a mix of faster growth there, lower rents (historically, CO blew up later), a more libertarian brand of Republican rule, and less inequality overall. Ogden, Utah as a city had the lowest inequality and best mobility last time I checked, and Provo was second. It helps that Utah also leads in donations to non-profits by a huge margin, so there is more voluntary social support.

Personal experience would show you. I can assure you, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Can show me what? I have no idea what you’re referring to.

That the wealthy don't universally, or even predominantly have the positive traits you ascribed to them.

Certainly, they might embody those traits more on average, but it's probably not a huge difference between the upper middle class and the top 1%.

Aside from a necessary level of intelligence and emotional intelligence, I would say ambition is more a determing factor than conscientiousness.

If we're talking Big Five personality traits, you need a base line conscientiousness for work ethic, but too much is probably bad. Risk tolerance from low neuroticism and lower agreeability is probably more important.

That the wealthy don't universally, or even predominantly have the positive traits you ascribed to them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I didn’t think we were talking about the wealthy. I thought it was about the so called 1%, who, yes, are wealthy, but there are lots of wealthy people out there, all very different: conscientious, lazy, deceitful, charitable and so on.

So we’re talking about a specific group of people who are so wealthy that they are regarded as beyond wealthy. I put up some of their names. I put up what I would regard as personality traits that may be behind their success, I gave some history of the lives and I also put up what are probably not the best aspects of their personalities.

Now to be that successful, whether you inherit money or not, you would need to have many of those positive traits I put up. Hard work is the one trait everyone who succeeds has. I don’t think that’s debatable.

Certainly, they might embody those traits more on average, but it's probably not a huge difference between the upper middle class and the top 1%. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Exactly, some of these traits are common in all successful people at all levels, from a small store to someone like Bill Gates. Having money doesn’t mean you are one of those people. Plenty of people lose their wealth.

I would say ambition is more a determing factor than conscientiousness. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Fine, call it ambition if you like, but don’t call it criminal.

The OP is about wealth rather than income.

Income is going to be largely meritocratic and deserved you would hope. But wealth goes to being part of the rentier class.

So apples and oranges. — apokrisis

The OP is actually about who these people are.

But anyway, wealth and income are not apples and oranges, they are inseparable.

Edit: actually I’ll correct myself here: “ Wealth can be contrasted to income in that wealth is a stock and income is a flow, and it can be seen in either absolute or relative terms.” https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/wealth.asp

For those who might like to enlarge their minds a little:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rainerzitelmann/2020/06/08/scientific-study-luxury-is-not-what-motivates-rich-people-to-become-rich/?sh=7df21c33200c

“ Almost all of the interviewees, including those over the age of 70, regularly worked and devoted a significant amount of time to their professional activities. And this was despite the fact that none of them had to work for financial reasons.”

Frugality is an underrated virtue, especially for people who aren't already rich. And for those who are really really rich, there is no amount of wealth that stupidity can't flush down the toilet.

Even someone who worked in below-average-paying non-profit or service job (with or without degrees) can end up a lot wealthier than one might suppose: If they saved money consistently; if they bought a house prudently (smaller, at the bottom of the market); if they paid cash for cars (by saving over the life of the present car); having adequate health insurance; investing conservatively, if they maintained a lower-income life style, and so on. They could end up having 350,000 to 500,000 in wealth when they retired. Were they employed in better paying jobs, or well-paid jobs (but not high-paying) they could, with the steps listed, end up as millionaires.

Having children is expensive, so raising a family might deter one from achieving any accumulation of wealth till later in life.

Frugality doesn't require one to live a pinched pleasure-free lifestyle, but it does foreclose freely spending on vacations, decorating, drinking a lot (alcohol is expensive, especially when regularly consumed at a bar), smoking (especially at the average per pack price of $6.30). Over 10 years a pack a day smoker would spend a minimum of $22,920. That's a significant hunk of cash. A 2-pack a day smoker in a state with higher taxes ($8-$10 a pack) would spend close to $60,000 over a 10 year period. Regularly eating meals in restaurants (even if run of the mill or fast food) can prevent one from saving much. Pack a lunch on your way to becoming a millionaire.

OK, so a millionaire today isn't what it was 20, 30, or 40 years ago -- let alone 100 years ago, but having cash in the bank is imminently better than owning money all over town. Even if one's wealth is minimal, avoiding debt is very desirable.

Wealth and income are closely related, but maybe not inseparable. They are often reported separately, So, if you look at a list of people's earnings, it's often much less impressive than the list of people's accumulated wealth.

Then there is earned income from work, and unearned income from investment. If you are worth $100,000,000 your earned income might be peanuts, while your unearned income could be quite high.

The OP is actually about who these people are. — Brett

There are a number of studies about who these people are, and how they operate. If you want to know more (much more) about wealth and power, start with G. William Domhoff, Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Research Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His four books are among the highest rated titles in sociology (OK, not the same as the best selling books on Amazon).

Who Rules America? (1967, #12)
The Higher Circles (1970, #39)
The Powers That Be (1979, #47)
Who Rules America Now? (1983, #43)

Don't be too concerned about the publication dates; the perches where the elite roost do not change very fast. Besides, he's still publishing:

More recently, he is the author of The Corporate Rich and the Power Elite in the Twentieth Century: How They Won and Why Labor and Liberals Lost (2020); Diversity in the Power Elite (3rd ed., 2018, with Richard L. Zweigenhaft); Who Rules America? The Triumph of the Corporate Rich (7th ed., 2014); The Myth of Liberal Ascendancy: Corporate Dominance From the Great Depression to the Great Recession (2013); The New CEOs (2011, with Richard L. Zweigenhaft); Class and Power in the New Deal (2011, with Michael Webber); and The Leftmost City (2009, with Richard Gendron).

Domhoff has a good website, https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/about.html which has more information,

X -

Depends on what country you’re referring to? In the US it would be anyone earning around 500,000 dollars a year or more.

On a global scale it would include everyone who posts here. In some countries the distribution is more skewed than in others. Historically the most powerful nations (in terms of economics) always suffer from extremes of poverty and wealth. Due to various factors - including the effects of a ‘smaller’ world because of communication and mass advertising - this common feature is probably magnified due to awareness and actual adverse effects brought about by such effects of our current revolutionary period (computer/information age, soon to be CRISPR age).

A great problem is the global community acting like ‘their country’ is the be all and end all of everything. Things are a changing though .., subtly but very, VERY quickly.

I’m just waiting for people to be less fearful. ... or rather to ‘embrace’ fear. Opportunity is a mindset not a privilege. None of us are perfect, and none of us enjoy suffering (obviously!), but it helps to fully understand the benefits of suffering to better ourselves in what small ways we can - sadly this is just something that comes with experience IF you are willing to blame yourself rather than the ‘regime’ or ‘them’.

GL HF :)

Frugality is an underrated virtue, — Bitter Crank

I have a bit of a problem with some posts that keep falling back on a moral position in regard to these people, not that I’m suggesting that of you. The OP as wondering about who exactly they are “and if there are trends in their philosophies or religious outlooks.”

Some have insisted that

the 1% aren't self-made but inherit their wealth — apokrisis

or

All I know is their crap smells the same as ours — Outlander

Well many are self made, and even if they inherited wealth what’s wrong with that?

And if their crap smells the same as ours then we’re just like them.

How can anyone make judgements about these people without understanding who they are, specially here on a philosophy forum? Why would anyone do that? Why insist that

They are societal parasites. — StreetlightX

when evidence suggests that’s not always the case.

Wealth and income are closely related, but maybe not inseparable. — Bitter Crank

I had made a correction on my post about this as an edit. I’m never sure which is the best: an edit or a new post.

I would say ambition is more a determing factor than conscientiousness. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Many on this OP regard the 1% as a blight on the land, parasites and responsible for the hardships of the poorer members of the community.

So far as I can see the driving force behind these people is a powerful work ethic and ambition.

If you’re going to control these people to stop them making so much money because it’s wrong then you’re going to have to control the work ethic and ambition. How do we do that? How do we set limits and controls? Are you going to say it’s illegal to work that hard or that your ambitions are immoral so you must give up your ambitions? At what point do you cross the line into immorality? Who sets these parameters?