"Elite overproduction" is a neat semantic trick.
When the word "elite" expands from "toxic billionaire" to "everybody with a liberal arts degree working at Starbucks", a target is taken off the backs of those toxic billionaires.
In this case, it's not the Starbucks baristas calling themselves elite. It's actual toxic elites (via media they control - national review, bloomberg, etc.) calling Starbucks baristas "elites". Implying that they are perhaps a little too entitled - wanting typical elite stuff like affordable healthcare, housing, education, etc.
It parallels the way that people earning $600,000 / year call themselves "middle class".
Or the wonderfully named "baumol's cost disease", which is what some consider to be a frankly disgusting tendency of wages to go up in more productive societies.
When the word "elite" expands from "toxic billionaire" to "everybody with a liberal arts degree working at Starbucks", a target is taken off the backs of those toxic billionaires.
In this case, it's not the Starbucks baristas calling themselves elite. It's actual toxic elites (via media they control - national review, bloomberg, etc.) calling Starbucks baristas "elites". Implying that they are perhaps a little too entitled - wanting typical elite stuff like affordable healthcare, housing, education, etc.
It parallels the way that people earning $600,000 / year call themselves "middle class".
Or the wonderfully named "baumol's cost disease", which is what some consider to be a frankly disgusting tendency of wages to go up in more productive societies.