Income inequality framing fragmented along ideological lines in the 2010s

Evidence

OWS thrust the issue of income inequality into the national conversation with a memorable slogan: “We are the 99%.” The phrase, attributed variously to economist Joseph Stiglitz or anarchist anthropologist David Graeber, drew attention to the fact that the top 1 percent of Americans controlled 40 percent of the country’s wealth. French economist Thomas Piketty would later articulate the structural forces behind this inequality. He argued that returns on wealth consistently outpaced wage growth, further enriching the very top of society and undermining “the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.” OWS framed this disparity as a battle between the people and a small, entrenched oligarchy. This message had potential to bridge ideological divides, but political factions soon weaponized competing definitions of “elites.” Liberals targeted their ire at billionaires and Wall Street executives, while conservatives pointed fingers at coastal professionals and the academy. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 219

Categorization

• XREF: Relevant to the reader’s omnivore-monoculture thesis: the same status-and-elite dynamics that flatten taste also fragment political solidarity — one mechanism underlying both.