{
  "id": "one-percent.few",
  "term": "one percent",
  "sense": "few",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 17,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A collective self that divides into an in-group and an out-group by wealth: the few members keeping most of it, against every other member.",
  "folk_gloss": "the richest one percent of a population, contrasted with everyone else",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "collective-self.shared",
      "boundary.limit",
      "wealth.range",
      "keep.maintenance",
      "in-group.inside",
      "out-group.outside",
      "division.process",
      "member.social",
      "against.opposition"
    ],
    "interaction": "A line drawn at a number puts almost all members on one pole, so the split reads as the whole group against a small part of itself.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a split that leaves almost all on one pole",
      "a line drawn by a number"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "Joseph Stiglitz's 2011 Vanity Fair essay was titled 'Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%'.",
      "domain": "economics"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "elite.few",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "the elite is read as setting the walls; the one percent is named by wealth alone"
    },
    {
      "id": "middle-class.centre",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "the middle class widens a centre; the one percent splits off the top"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "one percent",
    "one percenters",
    "the one percent"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-one-percent.few"
}