The sources of the overclass

Kevin Drum does a nice bit this morning on how we should not conflate the fact that structural changes in the economy are shifting relative economic rewards generally to highly skilled (a structural change which underpins much of the rich-world backlash politics, from Topeka to Toulon), with the fact that on top of that structural shift the United States has also enacted a major shift in the federal tax burden from the superrich to the middle class. In other words, the shift of wealth and income from the middle classes to the wealthy and superwealthy is being driven not only by secular economic fundamentals, but also by tax policy. Not either/or.