I think I understand that the author was saying that arresting everyone involved with the epstein stuff would in no way move the world toward a more equitable socioeconomic system, and focusing on this specific situation takes away from the 'real' work necessary to do so. I disagree. I see the epstein situation, and the global awareness and disgust, as a crack in the capitalist system that should be exploited. progressive messaging on this situation could be more along the lines of 'this child sex trafficking ring is not an abberation within the capitalist system, it is an inevitable feature when obscene wealth is allowed to be concentrated in the hands of a few'. From this perspective, then, using a term like 'epstein class' is actually a useful, albeit inaccurate, way of discussing how the socioeconomic system will enable this to happen again (and is most certainly ongoing right now) to people who generally don't think about things in terms of 'economic systems'.
"There is no doubt that Epstein was an effective influence peddler and a ruthless manipulator. He trafficked in favours and would almost certainly have used whatever kompromat he possessed to his advantage." ..... "Epstein slithered his way up to some remarkable heights but he was nowhere near setting the agenda in the corporate boardrooms and around the cabinet tables." So which is it? Was he an expert manipulator who exerted influence on people in powerful positions globally or not?
Agreed - the data does show that the middle 40% own ~50%, and that since this bloc consists of more people they therefore have more consumption (probably...maybe? that seems like something that might need more research to quantify, and probably has easily skewable results in either direction). These facts should not absolve the wealthiest of their detrimental hoarding, but us living in the 'core' are the 1% of the world so yea I also agree that it does not absolve us of our extreme consumption relative to most people of the world. I am reminded of a comic(or a tweet or something) where some guy is complaining about the traffic and someone else responds with 'brother YOU are the traffic'.
In Pikettys Capital in the 21st Century the breakdown for US wealth distribution was something like: top 1% has ~30%, top 10% has ~50% (that includes the 1%), the next top 40% have almost all the rest so like ~49%, and the bottom 50% of the economic ladder has that 1%. That was a decade ago, and its gotten worse since then
I think I understand that the author was saying that arresting everyone involved with the epstein stuff would in no way move the world toward a more equitable socioeconomic system, and focusing on this specific situation takes away from the 'real' work necessary to do so. I disagree. I see the epstein situation, and the global awareness and disgust, as a crack in the capitalist system that should be exploited. progressive messaging on this situation could be more along the lines of 'this child sex trafficking ring is not an abberation within the capitalist system, it is an inevitable feature when obscene wealth is allowed to be concentrated in the hands of a few'. From this perspective, then, using a term like 'epstein class' is actually a useful, albeit inaccurate, way of discussing how the socioeconomic system will enable this to happen again (and is most certainly ongoing right now) to people who generally don't think about things in terms of 'economic systems'.