IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/capwps/201902.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How the rich are different: Hierarchical power as the basis of income and class

Author

Listed:
  • Fix, Blair

Abstract

What makes the rich different? Are they more productive, as mainstream economists claim? I offer another explanation. What makes the rich different, I propose, is hierarchical power. The rich command hierarchies. The poor do not. It is this greater control over subordinates, I hypothesize, that explains the income and class of the very rich. I test this idea using evidence from US CEOs. I find that the relative income of CEOs increases with their hierarchical power, as does the capitalist portion of their income. This suggests that among CEOs, both income size and income class relate to hierarchical power. I then use a numerical model to test if the CEO evidence extends to the US general public. The model suggest that this is plausible. Using this model, I infer the relation between income size, income class, and hierarchical power among the US public. The results suggests that behind the income and class of the very rich lies immense hierarchical power.

Suggested Citation

  • Fix, Blair, 2019. "How the rich are different: Hierarchical power as the basis of income and class," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2019/02, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:capwps:201902
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/196154/1/1663458073.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avi J. Cohen, 2003. "Retrospectives: Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 199-214, Winter.
    2. Thomas J. Dohmen & Ben Kriechel & Gerard A. Pfann, 2004. "Monkey bars and ladders: The importance of lateral and vertical job mobility in internal labor market careers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(2), pages 193-228, June.
    3. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 553-609.
    5. Francisco Lima, 2000. "Internal labour markets: a case study," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp378, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    6. Nitzan, Jonathan & Bichler, Shimshon, 2009. "Capital as Power. A Study of Order and Creorder," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157973, March.
    7. Stefania Vitali & James B Glattfelder & Stefano Battiston, 2011. "The Network of Global Corporate Control," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(10), pages 1-6, October.
    8. Veblen, Thorstein, 1904. "Theory of Business Enterprise," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number veblen1904.
    9. Matthew Rognlie, 2015. "Deciphering the Fall and Rise in the Net Capital Share," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(1 (Spring), pages 1-69.
    10. Samuelson, Paul, 2012. "Understanding the Marxian Notion of Exploitation: A Summary of the So-CalledTransformation Problem Between Marxian Values and Competitive Prices," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, pages 182-202, August.
    11. Joan Robinson, 1953. "The Production Function and the Theory of Capital," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 21(2), pages 81-106.
    12. G. C. Harcourt, 2015. "On the Cambridge, England, Critique of the Marginal Productivity Theory of Distribution," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 47(2), pages 243-255, June.
    13. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2012. "Capital as Power: Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 61, pages 65-84.
    14. Jesus Felipe & Franklin M. Fisher, 2003. "Aggregation in Production Functions: What Applied Economists should Know," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2‐3), pages 208-262, May.
    15. Matthew Rognlie, 2015. "Deciphering the Fall and Rise in the Net Capital Share: Accumulation or Scarcity?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 46(1 (Spring), pages 1-69.
    16. David R. Roberts, 1956. "A General Theory of Executive Compensation Based on Statistically Tested Propositions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(2), pages 270-294.
    17. J. B. Glattfelder & S. Battiston, 2009. "Backbone of complex networks of corporations: The flow of control," Papers 0902.0878, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2009.
    18. Matt Hopkins & William Lazonick, 2016. "The Mismeasure of Mammon: Uses and Abuses of Executive Pay Data," Working Papers Series 49, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    19. James T. Peach, 1987. "Distribution and Economic Progress," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 1495-1529, September.
    20. Baker, George & Gibbs, Michael & Holmstrom, Bengt, 1993. "Hierarchies and compensation: A case study," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 366-378, April.
    21. Shuhei Aoki & Makoto Nirei, 2016. "Pareto Distribution of Income in Neoclassical Growth Models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 20, pages 25-42, April.
    22. Rick Audas & Tim Barmby & John Treble, 2004. "Luck, Effort, and Reward in an Organizational Hierarchy," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 379-396, April.
    23. Treble, John & van Gameren, Edwin & Bridges, Sarah & Barmby, Tim, 2001. "The internal economics of the firm: further evidence from personnel data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(5), pages 531-552, December.
    24. Toda, Alexis Akira, 2012. "The double power law in income distribution: Explanations and evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 364-381.
    25. Jacob Mincer, 1958. "Investment in Human Capital and Personal Income Distribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(4), pages 281-281.
    26. Gaffeo, Edoardo & Gallegati, Mauro & Palestrini, Antonio, 2003. "On the size distribution of firms: additional evidence from the G7 countries," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 324(1), pages 117-123.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Blair Fix, 2021. "How the rich are different: hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 403-454, November.
    2. Fix, Blair, 2019. "An Evolutionary Theory of Resource Distribution," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 90, pages 65-97.
    3. Fix, Blair, 2021. "The Rise of Human Capital Theory," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 95, pages 29-41.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blair Fix, 2021. "How the rich are different: hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 403-454, November.
    2. Fix, Blair, 2019. "How the Rich Are Different: Hierarchical Power as the Basis of Income Size and Class," SocArXiv t8muy, Center for Open Science.
    3. Fix, Blair, 2019. "How the rich are different: Hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2019/02 (v.2), Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    4. Fix, Blair, 2018. "Capitalist income and hierarchical power: A gradient hypothesis," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2018/06, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    5. Fix, Blair, 2018. "Capitalist Income and Hierarchical Power," SocArXiv u8epv, Center for Open Science.
    6. Fix, Blair, 2018. "The trouble with human capital theory," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2018/07, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    7. Fix, Blair, 2018. "The Trouble with Human Capital Theory," SocArXiv ax6k7, Center for Open Science.
    8. Blair Fix, 2022. "Economic development and the death of the free market," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-46, April.
    9. Fix, Blair, 2017. "Evidence for a Power Theory of Personal Income Distribution," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2017/03, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    10. Fix, Blair, 2018. "The Trouble With Human Capital Theory," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 86, pages 15-32.
    11. Fix, Blair, 2017. "Evidence for a Power Theory of Personal Income Distribution," SocArXiv qgwus, Center for Open Science.
    12. Fix, Blair, 2020. "Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market," SocArXiv g86am, Center for Open Science.
    13. Blair Fix, 2018. "Hierarchy and the power-law income distribution tail," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 471-491, September.
    14. Fix, Blair, 2020. "Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2020/01, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    15. Fix, Blair, 2018. "The growth of US top income inequality: A hierarchical redistribution hypothesis," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2018/05, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    16. Fix, Blair, 2018. "The Growth of US Top Income Inequality: A Hierarchical Redistribution Hypothesis," SocArXiv suqnk, Center for Open Science.
    17. Blair Fix, 2019. "Energy, hierarchy and the origin of inequality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-32, April.
    18. Fix, Blair, 2019. "Energy, Hierarchy and the Origin of Inequality," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14(4, April), pages 1-32.
    19. Fix, Blair, 2021. "Redistributing Income Through Hierarchy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 98, pages 58-86.
    20. Fix, Blair, 2021. "Living the good life in a non-growth world: Investigating the role of hierarchy," SocArXiv wem9p, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    hierarchy; power; functional income distribution; personal income distribution; inequality; capital as power; class;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D33 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Factor Income Distribution
    • B5 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:capwps:201902. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.capitalaspower.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.