> there are no "people who structure society" in a meaningful sense

That is ridiculous. Our society is governed by laws and social norms. Those are not handed down from heaven by the gods, they are made by people. Yes, it's true that "the people who structure society" is not a small or easily-identifiable group. That doesn't mean that this group of people does not exist. It most assuredly does (and if you are on HN you are probably a member of that group).

If all of HN is in this group than the group is so large as to be meaningless. 1% of all Americans is more than 3 million people.

I certainly don't wake up in the morning and ordain where people get there food from even if I'm an incremental part of structures that have some influence on the economics of America (all voters are)

> That doesn't mean that this group of people does not exist.

This logic sounds a whole lot like what a moon landing denier would say. I'm not saying you are in that group but the line of reasoning is the same.

That is equally ridiculous. A group does not become meaningless once it gets beyond a certain size. The Republican Party is very large. That does not make it meaningless.

righ which is exactly my point. the republican party as a structure has influence. that does not mean being a member of it gives you any meaningful influence. the collective has distributed power. this is in the same way as how the government as a collective determines a lot of how our society runs without their being people who "control society" even though the government is made up of people.

It’s not quite distributed though, it’s concentrated into a few hands, and we can name those individuals. Those hands passed a tax bill in 2017 that sent 80% of benefits to corporations and the top 1% of Americans. It was the only major piece of legislation they passed after getting into power between 2017 and 2019. That was a choice as to how they used their power, and they used it to help the richest Americans. That’s what people mean when they say “the people who structure society”.

>> no one sat in a meeting and said " ok lets design it so some people have to eat out of the trashcan"

What are panhandling ordinances if not exactly that?