Vanguard fantasies: The wealthy upper classes as politically spirited wealth elite establishment

Abstract

To contribute to studies on upper classes’ self-justification, in this article, we aim to develop a perspective to explore how the increasingly wealthy upper classes seek to morally justify themselves in the realm of politics. Drawing on Norbert Elias’s work, we suggest that amid the current economic and technological turbulence, the wealthy upper classes form dynamic wealth elite figurations that devise shared symbolics and programmes to coordinate and justify their political interests. By drawing on 90 interviews with the top 0.1% earners in Finland, we trace how old and new money – heirs to large family businesses, high-end corporate executives and up-and-coming nouveau riche entrepreneurs – craft, in Elias’s terms, an establishment fantasy as a melange of moral goods to justify the upper classes’ political views in an egalitarian society. The fantasy serves as a banner uniting the wealthy and supporting their societal interests. In the fantasy, the top earners resemble a resolute vanguard with a reformatory programme that utilises the strong bonds of we-ness in egalitarian Nordic solidarity while simultaneously questioning the core features of the Nordic welfare model to the advantage of the wealthiest stratum.