Like I said, people with $23MM net worth aren't influencing national elections with their wealth, though. That's what puts them in middle -- they may live a luxurious life, but they have very little real power.
You'd seem to prefer we ignore the existence of the ultra-wealthy, without appreciating the massively outsized influence they have. By pretending they don't exist or don't matter, you are holding them unaccountable for the power they wield on a national, and global scale. Yet they have the most responsibility to bear when it comes to inequality.
So you can scapegoat the middle class, but you're just doing a favor to those ultra-rich who hold real power, by eliminating their potential middle competitors for them. This is the high + low vs middle power dynamic.
I don't think it's unreasonable to define the upper class as the group who wields the most political power. Use whatever word you want, "overlord", "elite", "oligarch", it doesn't matter. You seem to be playing semantic word games to avoid addressing my central point.
I'm entirely comfortable with noting there's a special category of super-rich, mega-wealthy, upper-upper class, top 0.1%, whatever you want to call it.
Calling someone with $23M net worth "upper middle" class remains absurd.
you can't use a non-standard definition of a word and then complain others are playing word games.
you seem to think all that matters is inequality in political power but I think inequality in, say, quality of life, protection under the law or healthcare are also important and those exist well below the 0.01% (and in non-wealth dimensions).
Also, I'm nowhere near the top 0.01% but I do donate a good amount to political campaigns and I regularly get personal calls from congress people (presumably expecting more money). I don't think people in the bottom 50% get such calls.
Wikipedia's definition includes those who "wield the most political power", so I don't think it's non-standard, per se. Although, I have complained elsewhere in this thread that the language we use to describe class and power obscures the existence of "elites" who hold the most influence.
Because elite power is hidden, it becomes unaccountable. You can scapegoat the "upper class" asshole with a Lamborghini and infinity pool, but that's obscuring the massive influence of figures like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson.
I completely agree with you that protection under the law, healthcare, etc, are important and should be rectified. But the people who are ultimately deciding that are the ultra wealthy elites [1]. So taxing multi-millionaires is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, rather than addressing inequality in a meaningful way.
To do this, elite power must be held accountable. To be held accountable, it must be seen, and not made invisible by "word games".
according to gallup polling between 1-3% of people self-identify as upper class. no matter your definition that's gonna include people with merely $20MM in wealth.
and i'll add that $20MM definitely gets you regular lunch with congresspeople and maybe even a ride on airforce one (I know someone who donated enough to Trump to get this and isn't a billionaire).
Well, it's not a well defined term, that's part of the problem. I think it's worth the effort to challenge the language used to describe class and power, though, because the terminology omits the existence of the elite. I've addressed that elsewhere in the thread so won't rehash it again here, but it has revealed to me some of the weird psychological barriers in place preventing the rehabilitation of the language we use. For one, the middle doesn't want admit to themselves how far they truly are from actual power and prefer to think of themselves as high or near-high. Second, the shear exponential scale of the power disparity between the middle and high is hard to comprehend.
You'd seem to prefer we ignore the existence of the ultra-wealthy, without appreciating the massively outsized influence they have. By pretending they don't exist or don't matter, you are holding them unaccountable for the power they wield on a national, and global scale. Yet they have the most responsibility to bear when it comes to inequality.
So you can scapegoat the middle class, but you're just doing a favor to those ultra-rich who hold real power, by eliminating their potential middle competitors for them. This is the high + low vs middle power dynamic.