> I prefer a society where everyone have min well being and better off people have some luxuries

^ people will still fight tooth and nail for the luxuries even if the basic floor of existence keeps rising. It's like that proverb of the dogs, it's not enough that we succeed, cats must fail. I assume it had to do with the competition of passing on your genes.

Not really, that's cultural. In the recent past, status was also associated with professions that made a positive contribution toward society such as doctors. Nowadays you're a respected leader if you own a big ass yacht even if it's luck. The longer term trend was this material wealth but I blame that on inequality, which is rising now.

It used to be the case more that the ultra rich didn't work; but nowadays they often have a lot of wealth generating assets + high paying jobs - 'homoploutia', as coined by Branko Milanovic

Someone earning more than ~$400k per year puts them in the top 1% of income earners. They earn more than 99% of the population.

And you’re saying these people aren’t rich?

A lot of them aren’t “culturally rich”. They grew up upper middle class (so a stable home life and a solid education with family support but no expectation of inherited wealth) and strongly value education and work ethic.

I would actually argue that this is a good thing. A society benefits when its most capable members continue to work hard.

Not sure what “culturally rich” means, but if the problem is income I equality, the top 1% need to pay more taxes.

You could also use the term “leisure class”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Cl...

I generally agree about taxes, in particular an estate tax on wealth.

Inheriting a house is inherited wealth, your baseline assumptions for wealth are completely divorced from reality.

In which sense they are the most capable?

Is a bathtub full if it just got started filling at a high rate?

Often people use 'affluent' to refer to high flow, as opposed to rich/wealthy (high stock).

a lot of these professionals could be making 7 or 8 figures a year. they don’t “have” to work. they choose to.

and there’s much more people in this elite strata than if you only count the traditional ultra wealthy

There are a total of 358k people in the US that earned $1M+ in 2020. Seems like a very small population to be talking about out of a country of 330M. There are probably only ~20k people earning $10M+.

https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/

There is a vast difference between earning mid six figures and “could be earning 7 or 8 figures”. And there is a vast difference in lifestyle between those who can maintain their lifestyle by doing nothing and those who have to grind to maintain it.