Nick Perzacki’s Reviews > Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics > Status Update

Pretty straightforward chapter - mainly about the importance of recognizing our own position in society in relation to those positioned outside our orbit/consideration rather than prioritizing the issues faced in our subjective position in society, the limitations of deference politics, and the need for a constructive politics.

He uses the emperor’s new clothes story to demonstrate how the citizens act outside their beliefs in the face of power structures. However, I take a slightly different interpretation - when the “spell” (as he puts it) is cast everyone, including the emperor, is trapped in it. The emperor may have cushier position in the spell, but he can’t really escape/change it without destroying it. Idk im just yapping

Always fun to get name drops of other authors I’ve read recently - Franz Fanon & Angela Davis both get a couple mentions in this chapter. Otherwise, honestly I didn’t get a whole lot from this chapter - it’s basically just saying elite capture is endemic to capitalism, as discussed by both those authors and several others he mentions.

Elite capture sounds an awful lot like reification in capitalism but simply in a more sociological sense.