How the woke transmit wealth and inequality

Postmaterial politics

In crass terms, the name of this chapter is Arrogance.

Voting with their feet, symbolic professions concentrate in the "symbolic hubs" of America's trendy cities and university precincts, practising "assortative mating".

Much of the political "melodrama" and media participation plays out within their coterie. Decrying "misinformation", they assume they best know "the facts". Hang on, enjoins the author, they're also tribal, dogmatic, and partisan.

Professionals used to swing Republican. Now it's Democrat.

Compared with society at large, elites in both parties tend pro "market" economically but pro "left" culturally.

When only 3% of Americans had degrees, it was harder for graduates to disengage from the common folk. Now it's a third.

With symbolic capitalism now setting the US economic agenda, research drifting from industry into academia, innovation seems to have stagnated not blossomed. This echoes the US rise-and-fall analysis of Robert Gordon.

Totemic capitalism

Symbolic capitalists have developed a fancy fourth form of capital – totemic. Theirs is a victimhood culture looking to "directly embody" the vulnerable and disadvantaged. Cut out the middleman, as it were.

Men, al-Gharbi ventures, like power, caring less how they make others comply. But group- and status-conscious women increasingly dominate the ranks of symbolic capitalists. Their self-esteem wants the masses to conform "for the right reasons".

In the US, a "black" identity can work in a person's favour, more so if it's multi-racial. LGBTQ persons can also scale the elite ranks. This doesn't of itself mitigate "hardships" faced by the disadvantaged.

"Special group" achievers (not excluding the author himself) may be taken to possess totemic knowledge, insight, morality.

They can become "consecrated" public voices – provided they play nice.