/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>How large is the ruling class, in a broad sense.
According to Paul Cockshott's calculations it's roughly 3% of the population
https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=BQrEEdy_uwM

Skip to 6:57 for the relevant part. Though I recommend watching the entire video if you care to understand his argument.

Why do you go straight from "10-20 thousand" to "billion," OP?
I'd guess the number is probably in the millions, though I guess it could be around a billion. Definitely not in the 10-20 thousands - even the US's richest 4 percent alone (going by 2010 numbers because it's what I've got on-hand and I'm too lazy for anything but the math) is around 13 million people. That's people making upwards of 200k per year, who are mostly bourgeoisie and wealthy landlords. If we use that income group to represent the bourgeoisie (which isn't entirely accurate, since a small minority of those people are wealthy authors, actors, etc. who may not have other business ventures), and all 195-or-so countries in the world had as many resident bourgeoisie as the US, then there would be around 2.5 billion borgs on Earth. That's obviously way higher than the actual number, though, since most countries on Earth have fewer people and fewer super-rich people than the US. The actual number of people who are that wealthy is absolutely in the millions, but probably falls short of a billion.

>>473112
And this probably beats my methodology here by trillions.

>>473112
>>473113
I'm asking what is the quantity of people with extraordinary power, not necessarily the quality of capitalists or lots of wealth.

>>473114
>I'm asking what is the quantity of people with extraordinary power
Not sure what you are looking for then. Please define "extraordinary power"

According to the book Giants: The Global Power Elite, as of 2018 there were 36 million millionaires worldwide and the richest sector of the bourgeois was about 5.000 to 10.000 people, of which 2000 were billionaires. The top 0.0001% of the population.

I guess the numbers might be a little outdated now, but the book is worth checking out.

>>473115
Are you dumb?

>473115
Power could be defined a few ways:

The ability to influence behavior and actions of others or to consciously shape the course of events.

Or, more soberly, the ability to allocate scarce resources.

Synonyms of extraordinary include remarkable, noteworthy, exceptional, etc.

So back to the question. What is the approximate quantity of actually living people in the world today with a remarkable and grand ability to direct others' actions, behaviors, and lived habits, shape the course of events, and/or allocate scarce resources?

>>473128
>The ability to influence behavior and actions of others or to consciously shape the course of events.
I somehow doubt that anybody can truly shape events, i think it's all just degrees of influence.

>the ability to allocate scarce resources.
I guess within regular functioning of capitalism that would be the people with the most money ?
Tho true power is the ability to transform scarcity into abundance.

>What is the approximate quantity of actually living people in the world today with a remarkable and grand ability to direct others' actions, behaviors, and lived habits, shape the course of events, and/or allocate scarce resources?
<how many puppeteers are pulling the strings of humanity ?
Marx thought that in class societies agency over fate was not possible. In Marx's view the degree of freedom for individual people is that they can choose which class interests they serve, but probably nobody can direct the system.