An interesting survey of UK’s top income earners:
Related research paper:
A Relational Analysis of Top Incomes and
Wealth: Economic Evaluation, Relative (Dis)advantage and the Service to Capital
by Katharina Hecht
Abstract:
While an impressive
body of economic literature documents increases in top incomes and wealth in
liberal market economies, few studies focus on the social and cultural
processes constitutive of this inequality. Drawing on a mixed-methods study in
the UK, this article elaborates how top incomes and wealth are made sense of
and produced by economic ‘elites’ through the cultural process of economic
evaluation. Economic evaluative practices are based on the idea that ‘the
market’ is a neutral and fair instrument for the distribution of resources. Due
to economic evaluation and inequality at the top, top income earners experience
relative (dis)advantage; while recognizing their advantage compared to the
general population they experience disadvantage when ‘looking up’. Top incomes
are produced via economic evaluative practices which conceptualize the value of
labour based on increases in the value of capital. Hence the legitimating
purpose of top incomes and wealth is service to capital.