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The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy
Article

The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Matthew Stewart
The Atlantic, 2018
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Concrete Examples
  • Eloquent

Recommendation

Equality of opportunity has been a founding principle of the American Republic. However, in an eye-opening, self-deprecating cover story for The Atlantic magazine, Matthew Stewart uses statistics and personal anecdotes to describe how privilege in the United States is becoming increasingly inheritable. If you consider yourself part of a meritocratic middle class, getAbstract believes Stewart might change your mind.

Take-Aways

  • Rising inequality in the United States has come in parallel with diminished social mobility. 
  • While the wealth share of the bottom 90% has dropped and that of the top 0.1% has increased over the past decades, the wealth share of the 9.9% in between has remained stable. 
  • The 9.9% have come to form a distinct new class with a strong resemblance to an aristocracy founded on wealth and birth.  

About the Author

Matthew Stewart is a political philosopher and author of Nature’s God and The Management Myth.

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