Income-percentile measures cannot isolate wealthiest elites from prosperous ninetieth-percentile citizens.
Evidence
What we cannot do with these data is distinguish definitively among different versions of elite theories. We cannot be sure whether we are capturing the political influence of the wealthiest Americans (the top 1 percent of wealth-holders? the top one-tenth of 1 percent?), or, conceivably, the less affluent but more numerous citizens around the ninetieth income percentile whose preferences are directly gauged by our measure. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 111
Categorization
- QUESTION: Core to the stated reading purpose: this is them acknowledging the 10th/50th/90th income-percentile operationalization cannot determine WHO exercises control — directly relevant to who is ‘climbing the politicization staircase.’
- XREF: connects to: Affluent-proxy preferences understate the true gap between elites and ordinary citizens. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 105; Measurement error in the affluent proxy biases elite influence estimates downward, not upward. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 58
Broader Connections
- Affluent-proxy preferences understate the true gap between elites and ordinary citizens.
#expands(0.82) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 105 - Measurement error in the affluent proxy biases elite influence estimates downward, not upward.
#expands(0.80) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 58