Judgments about Inequality and Economic Elite among the
Middle Classes: Discontents and Sociology of Critique
Oscar Mac-Clure, Universidad de Los Lagos, Chile.
Emmanuelle Barozet , Universidad de Chile, Chile.
Research problem: What is felt and thought
in everyday life about economic elite?
What do individuals in emerging countries (Chile in this
case) feel and think about their national economic elite?
Chile: a country with marked socioeconomic inequalities
 Does a critique emerge towards the extreme inequalities
represented by the national elite?
We consider the economic elite as a whole, but also the
distinction between the traditional elite and that of recent
mobility as prototypes that, regardless of whether they
constitute a single social actor, are capable of mobilizing
diverse subjective judgments from the individuals in society.
Global economy: “the 1 per cent”
The functioning of markets in the global economy generates
inequality and an extreme concentration of wealth
(Bourguignon, 2012; Piketty, 2013), especially in the one
percent of the population that constitutes an “economic elite”
(Stiglitz, 2012).
Boltanski (Presidential Plenary at ISA 2014): the “patrimonial
class”.
Economic elite: one of the most relevant expressions of
inequality at the world level.
Economic elite and sociology of critique
The tradition of critical social theory: unveiling the
structures and mechanisms that (re)produce systems of
inequalities.
Honneth (1995) and Boltanski (2009): a perspective that
stresses the rise of social critique from the actors
themselves.
Research questions focused mainly on the perception
and judgement of the middle classes;
popular sectors as comparison groups
1) In what way popular sectors and middle classes identify
the economic elite and distinguish it from other social
strata?
2) Is there a perception of injustice or discontent with
respect to the economic elite or, on the contrary, is there a
predominant acceptance and justification of the privileged
position of the elite?
3) Do the judgments vary depending on diverse sectors
composing the economic elite?
4) What influences people’s judgment about the elites?
Methodology based on experimental games
Experimental games
• Increasingly used in recent decades in social studies.
• A methodology aimed at a better understanding of social issues, without intending to get a
statistical representativeness with respect to the whole population (although we will later
reexamine this point).
Unknown person game
Players who must discover a character about which they can get partial information, paying
for this information. France: Boltanski & Thévenot, 1983; Desrosières & Thévenot, 1988;
Brousse et al., 2014.
European Union: Filhon et al., 2013.
Dictator game
Altruism / aversion to inequality
Henrich et al., 2005, 2010
Engel, 2010
Dictator game variant: donations to diverse nonprofit organizations
US: Eckel & Grossman, 1996, 2006; Eckel, Grossman & Milano, 2007.
Netherlands: Bekkers, 2007.
Fieldwork – Chile (2013)
6 groups in 3 cities (Santiago, Concepción, Chillán) =18 groups
3 players in each group = 54 players
Unknown person game: discovering economic elite
How do regular people identify and describe the elite, at a level other than the
political and economic-enterprising space that is better known through public
information and debate?
= Solving an enigma similar to what happens in social life: economic elite is
composed of a reduced set of individuals that isolate themselves as a function of
their interests.
• A matching game: 3 unknown characters - middle class, recent mobility elite and
traditional elite.
• US$ 36 in fake money for each player to buy response cards from the moderator.
• Price of each question: marked on cards available to the participants, and each
player could buy the answers that were of interest to him.
• To give rise to knowledge and intuitive interpretations belonging to the everyday
interaction of the participants in the exercise, the price structure of the questions
and answers is based on the distinction between three kinds of resources: economic,
social and cultural capital. The questions referring to the economic capital were in
general more expensive than the others, while those that provided more indirect
clues were less expensive
 Winner of the game: the person who wrote a better description of each of the
three individuals and spent less money to do it.
The categorization of the economic elite
The elite is not fully recognized as such by everyone: it is perceived partially and only
by some.
Unknown person game: types of resources used by the players.
Type of question
Economic capital
Cultural capital
Social capital
Total
Questions
used
2%
63%
36%
100%
Amount
spent
9%
56%
35%
100%
How are unknown persons of the economic elite discovered:
Some people do discover them from noneconomic signs that they articulate
in an interpretation based on cultural and social capital.
Dictator game: judgements about economic elite
A player is given an amount of money of which he/she can assign a part to
a stranger that simply plays the role of receiver.
• The players were informed that each of the three persons of the first
game owns a nonprofit organization that helps needy persons, to which
they could assign all or none of the money received.
• Each player received an amount of fake money equivalent to US$ 36.
• The players assigned the money silently and separately from the other
participants.
• This unleashed the players' preferences and judgments about the
characters to whom they could now give money for their corresponding
foundations.
This allows analyzing in what way the judgments of the participants differ
with respect to the two elite and the middle class individuals.
Judgment of the elite: the dictator game
Dictator game: average amounts spent by the players
Money assignments
Average assigned
amount
Middle class
46%
New elite
17%
Traditional elite
10%
Kept by the player
28%
Total
100%
Judgment of the elite: it is judged critically, in particular the
traditional elite, and to a smaller extent the recent elite, in
contrast with a more positive evaluation of the middle class.
.
Criticism towards the elite: criteria of evaluation
1. Cognition: not equal to judgement
What is at stake in the critical judgments of the players is above all the economic
capital of the members of the elite, and not the cultural or social capital used to
identify them cognitively.
2. Criteria of evaluation based on economic capital, but…
• What is judged critically is more the separation caused by the economic assets
of the elite with respect to the rest of society, than their privileged economic
position or the rules of the game that benefit its members.
• The members of the elite are mostly criticized for their behaviour towards the
less privileged. The criteria applied refers mainly to interpersonal treatment : Are
people treated with dignity and respect by the elite individuals?
• It is a criticism in which a justice of the procedures prevails over a distributive
(substantive) justice relative to the unequal distribution of the assets and to the
structural inequalities.
3. Procedural justice referred mostly to…
This criticism based on procedural justice acquires greater intensity with respect
to the traditional economic elite than to the recent elite.
Criticism towards the elite: who criticizes?
Groups of participants (players)
by social class
Higher Level Service class
Example: Lawyer
Lower Level Service class
Example: Electronics technician
Higher Level Routine Non-manual class
Example: Administrative employee, secretary
Lower Level Routine Non-manual class
Example: Salesman in store
Self Employed and Small Proprietors
Example: Small merchant
Unskilled Manual Workers
Example: Construction worker
Relative appreciation
of the economic elites
Unfavorable to both elites
Unfavorable to both elites,
especially the traditional elite
Very unfavorable to both elites
Very unfavorable to both elites,
especially the traditional elite
Low rejection of both elites
Low rejection of both elites
• The most intense criticism of the elite, mainly the traditional one, comes from the
Lower Level Non-manual Routine class composed of salespeople, cashiers and similar
occupations.
• Compared to Manual Workers, they qualify the economic elite more negatively
 the opposite of the prototype of the conflict between workers and capitalists
during most of the 20th century!
Looking forward - Prospects
At a global level
To what extent our results may be comparable to similar
situations in other countries?
Is there a global convergence in the subjective appreciations
with respect to the economic elite (national and global)?
Prospects
Reproducing experimental games through a survey at
national level: statistical representation of the population
(2016).
Comparison with similar surveys based on games in other
countries: France, Netherlands, European Union.
Thank you !
Oscar Mac-Clure, Universidad de Los Lagos, Chile. oscar.macclure@ulagos.cl
Emmanuelle Barozet , Universidad de Chile, Chile. ebarozet@uchile.cl
Judgment of the elite versus middle class: determinants
Dictator game:
Logit regression model for assigning or not more money to the middle class characters
with respect to the elite characters, according to city of residence and social class.
Variables
City of residence (Chillán)
Santiago
Concepción
Social class (Manual workers)
Higher Level Service class
Lower Level Service class
Higher Level Non-manual Routine class
Lower Level Non-manual Routine class
Self Employed and Small Proprietors
Constant
-2 log of verosimilitude vs. null model
Nagelkerke R square; n
*p<0.1 **p<0.05 *** p<0.01.
Odd ratio
.
11.564*
11.564*
34.361**
80.591***
55.545***
.397; 54
Diverse judgments about recent and traditional elites :
determinants
Dictator game:
Logit regression model for assigning or not more money to the recent elite characters with
respect to the traditional elite characters, according to city of residence and social class.
Variables
City of residence (Chillán)
Santiago
Concepción
Social class (Manual Workers)
Higher Level Service class
Lower Level Service class
Higher Level Routine Non-manual class
Lower Level Routine Non-manual class
Self Employed and Small Proprietors
Constant
-2 log verosimilitude vs. null model
Nagelkerke R square; n
*p<0.1 **p<0.05 *** p<0.01.
Odd ratio
35.111*
31.018**
52.654**
.358; 54
.