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Denethor King of the Road Since: May, 2013
King of the Road
Aug 30th 2021 at 2:25:56 AM •••

As a matter of curiosity I am going to ask how one defines "elites" for the purposes of this trope because science-fiction actually has many examples of stories a lot like Atlas Shrugged where sympathetic elites bailed out because of socialist tyranny or mob frenzy against them of one sort or another but sometimes the elite in question was elite only in comparison to those who wanted to help themselves to what the elites in question had. Examples include:

Methuselah's Children - The Immortal Howard Families have to flee Earth when their existence is revealed because nobody believes that their longevity comes from selective breeding rather than from secret techniques and they don't want to be interogatedfor secrets they don't have.

The Ginger Star Trilogy by Leigh Bracket - A Taxpaying city on Skaith wants to contact spacefaring Earthmen to transfer their citizens en masse offplanet because taxes are too high they are tired of the way those who run their planetary government uses the money to support lawless mobs at their expense. In this case the planetary government defines as "elite" everyone who lives in one of the city they collect taxes from.

In Oath of Fealty by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven relatively wealthy citizens seek to withdraw from the dystopic stupidity imposed on Los Angeles by the creation of a gated community.

So for the purposes of this trope is "elite" defined purely in economic terms or do other factors come into play?

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