Sociological research often uses income as the only indicator to describe or proxy the group of the rich. This article develops an alternative framework in order to describe varieties of affluence as three-dimensional: depending on income, wealth, and origin of wealth. The relevance of such a multidimensional perspective for social outcomes is demonstrated by analysing the heterogeneity in political attitudes between different varieties of affluence. For this purpose, ordinary least squares regressions are applied to a sample from 2005, 2009, and 2014 German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). The main results are, first, that the perspective of varieties of affluence reveals significant differences in social outcomes as demonstrated by political attitudes. Especially wealth possession is related to significantly more right political attitudes. Second, there is strong explorative evidence that the rich in Germany should be regarded as a heterogeneous group. These findings are robust to influential data, multiple imputations of wealth data, and endogeneity due to pooled data. The article concludes, among other things, that more data are required to make more certain assertions. Who Are ‘the Rich’ and Why Does It Matter? In recent years, there has been a shift in research on economic inequality from a primary interest in income to a focus on wealth. French economist Thomas Piketty famously predicted that wealth and its concentration might generally become increasingly important because the forecasted low economic growth might lead to decreasing chances of significant wealth accumulation through labour (Piketty, 2014; Piketty and Saez, 2014). His claim also adds relevance to the multigenerational persistence of wealth. For Germany, a recent study projected a yearly inheritance volume of up to EUR 400 billion per year until 2024—equivalent to 12.7 per cent of the GDP in 2016 (Tiefensee and Grabka, 2017). The share of pre-tax income received by the top 10 per cent has grown since the 1970s and in 2008 was at its highest level since 1917 (WID.world, 2017). In 2010, the share of wealth owned by the top 10 per cent of the wealth distribution in Germany was the highest in the Eurozone (Bundesbank, 2013: p. 30). These numbers are a reason to devote attention to the top income and wealth holders. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate to what extent social phenomena can be explained by variation among three forms of affluence: position in the income distribution, position in the wealth distribution, and origin of wealth—self-earned versus not self-earned. Reasons to make such distinctions are numerous: possible social-structural differences between these groups include ambition, family background, ability, migration background, social class, saving behaviour, and age. VC The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. European Sociological Review, 2020, Vol. 36, No. 1, 136–158 doi: 10.1093/esr/jcz051 Advance Access Publication Date: 11 October 2019 Original Article D ow naded rom http/academ ic.p.com /esr/article-at/36/1/136/5585947 by M ax-Pck-Institut fer G esellsctsforschung user on 21 Feruary 2020 The question in how far varieties of affluence only signal such group differences or exert independent direct effects needs to be answered empirically. Political attitudes are chosen here as one example for differing outcomes because, first, they can be expected to be related in many ways to individual economic circumstances. Second, insights into political attitudes among those with different varieties of affluence might add to existing research from other disciplines, such as a democratic responsiveness bias as an indicator of political inequality (Gilens, 2012: pp. 70–96; Grimes and Esaiasson, 2014; Bartels, 2016: pp. 233–268; Elsässer, Hense and Schäfer, 2016, 2017). The increased interest in wealth and the traditional conceptualization of the affluent as those with high incomes raise the question whether ‘the affluent’ can be seen as a homogenous group in terms of their political attitudes. Is it sufficient to define them as only those with high incomes? To shed light on this question, heterogeneity among the affluent is analysed by asking two related questions: Do varieties of affluence matter? Are the rich in Germany a homogenous group in terms of their political attitudes? The analysis is based on survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), mainly for the years 2005, 2009, and 2014. While the available data are not the ideal source with which to answer the questions posed, it is the best available so far, providing initial explorative insights into social outcomes among varieties of affluence in Germany. The article is structured as follows. Varieties of Affluence section reviews previous research on the affluent in Germany, including how they are defined and assessed and develops a differentiated framework to account for varieties of affluence as a foundation for the empirical examination. Affluence and political attitudes section again consults existing literature in order to derive hypotheses regarding political attitudes among different types of affluence. Methodology section presents the data and methodology used to test the framework, the results of which are given in Results section. Finally, Discussion section discusses the results, followed by a brief conclusion. Varieties of Affluence The affluent has been analysed in sociology at least seminal since the works of Veblen (1899) and Simmel (1900). Nevertheless, a general lack of research is constantly noted and criticized (e.g. Imbusch, 2003; Lauterbach and Ströing, 2008; Page, Bartels and Seawright, 2013). In German sociology, relevant results mainly come from the intersection of two streams of literature: the traditional sociology of elites (e.g. Hradil and Imbusch, 2003; Hartmann, 2013) and a new sociology of wealth (e.g. Druyen, Lauterbach and Grundmann, 2008; Böwing-Schmalenbrock, 2012; Spannagel, 2013; Waitkus and Groh-Samberg, 2018). Lauterbach and Ströing (2008) provide a systematic definition of the affluent as a synthesis of the heterogeneous existing international literature (Figure 1). The concept starts off with the assumption of a diversified stratification of income affluence and, in the next step, differentiates it further by including wealth. According to this definition, being wealthy in terms of income starts at an income level of at least twice the mean or median. The relevance of a combined perspective of income and wealth—and sometimes other dimensions—is suggested in several recent studies (e.g. Becker, 2003; Grabka et al., 2007; Druyen, Lauterbach and Grundmann, 2008; Lauterbach, Druyen and Grundmann, 2011; Peichl and Pestel, 2011; BöwingSchmalenbrock, 2012; Rowlingson and McKay, 2012; Spannagel, 2013; Skopek, 2015; Keister and Lee, 2017; Killewald, Pfeffer and Schachner, 2017). To add to these contributions, a framework is developed in the following that includes the origin of wealth in order to analyse how individuals with different varieties of affluence vary in terms of social outcomes. Being ‘rich’ can more accurately be understood as heterogeneous combinations of different forms of affluence. Being rich shall be defined as based on three dimensions of economic resources: income, wealth, and the origin of wealth. Income can be defined as a flow of economic resources that may be received from various sources such as labour, return on capital, or government transfers. Another less-studied and rarer type of income is windfall income obtained through exogenous sources such as inheritances or lottery wins. Both of these processes are not random. There is a good reason to believe that those who are better off are more likely to receive inheritances (e.g. Hansen, 2014; Bönke, Corneo and Westermeier, 2015: pp. 11–13). On the other hand, there is evidence that lottery participation is skewed towards lower-income groups and the working class (Beckert and Lutter, 2009, 2012). The reason windfall income and inheritances are discussed combined is that they are not distinguishable in the GSOEP over time. The amount that can be spent or saved regularly grows with increasing income. Therefore, one could expect high correlations between income and wealth, but, especially in (East) Germany, they are far from perfect (Peichl and Pestel, 2011). Killewald, Pfeffer and Schachner (2017: pp. 388–390) also show this for the European Sociological Review, 2020, Vol. 36, No. 1 137 D ow naded rom http/academ ic.p.com /esr/article-at/36/1/136/5585947 by M ax-Pck-Institut fer G esellsctsforschung user on 21 Feruary 2020 United States and find that wealth is also not completely related to income in the longer run. The amount of disposable income is highly dependent on household constellation. Therefore, income is usually measured as the household equivalent income: the overall household income standardized in relation to the number of adults and children living in it according to the new OECD equivalence scale (Hagenaars, Vos and Zaidi, 1996). The second dimension of affluence is wealth that can be defined as an accumulated stock of different assets such as real estate, valuable objects, or financial assets. Wealth is built up from the different sources of income—depending on individual behaviour such as consumption and saving. Analyses of income and wealth distributions show that wealth is significantly less equally distributed than income (Frick, Grabka and Hauser, 2010: pp. 122–124). Depending on the way it is used, wealth can generate various kinds of income, e.g. dividends from stocks, rent from properties, or increasing values of valuable objects such as art.

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富裕的多样性：收入或财富如何塑造富人的政治态度

社会学研究经常使用收入作为描述或代表富人群体的唯一指标。本文开发了一个替代框架，以从三个维度描述富裕的多样性：取决于收入、财富和财富来源。通过分析不同富裕阶层之间政治态度的异质性，证明了这种多维视角对社会结果的相关性。为此，将普通最小二乘回归应用于 2005、2009 和 2014 年德国社会经济小组 (GSOEP) 的样本。主要结果是，首先，不同富裕程度的视角揭示了政治态度所表明的社会结果的显着差异。尤其是财富占有与更为正确的政治态度有关。第二，有强有力的探索性证据表明，德国的富人应被视为一个异质群体。这些发现对于有影响力的数据、财富数据的多重插补以及汇总数据的内生性是稳健的。除其他外，文章得出的结论是，需要更多数据才能做出更确定的断言。谁是“富人”，为什么重要？近年来，对经济不平等的研究已经从主要关注收入转向关注财富。法国经济学家托马斯·皮凯蒂 (Thomas Piketty) 曾有一句著名的预测，财富及其集中度可能通常会变得越来越重要，因为预测的低经济增长可能会导致通过劳动获得大量财富积累的机会减少（Piketty，2014 年；Piketty 和 Saez，2014 年）。他的主张还增加了财富的多代持久性的相关性。对于德国，最近的一项研究预测，到 2024 年，每年的遗产额将高达 4000 亿欧元，相当于 2016 年 GDP 的 12.7%（Tiefensee 和 Grabka，2017 年）。自 1970 年代以来，前 10% 的人获得的税前收入份额有所增长，2008 年达到 1917 年以来的最高水平（WID.world，2017）。2010 年，德国财富分配中前 10% 的人拥有的财富份额在欧元区最高（Bundesbank，2013：第 30 页）。这些数字是关注最高收入和财富持有者的原因。这篇文章的目的是展示在何种程度上可以通过三种形式的富裕之间的差异来解释社会现象：在收入分配中的位置，财富分配中的地位和财富的来源——自赚与非自赚。做出这种区分的原因有很多：这些群体之间可能存在的社会结构差异包括志向、家庭背景、能力、移民背景、社会阶层、储蓄行为和年龄。VC The Author(s) 2019. 牛津大学出版社出版。这是一篇根据知识共享署名许可 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) 条款分发的开放获取文章，它允许在任何媒体中不受限制地重复使用、分发和复制，前提是原始作品被正确引用。欧洲社会学评论，2020 年，卷。36, No. 1, 136–158 doi: 10.1093/esr/jcz051 Advance Access Publication Date: 11 October 2019 Original Article Dow naded rom http/academ ic.p. com /esr/article-at/36/1/136/5585947 作者：Max-Pck-Institut fer G esellsctsforschung 用户，2020 年 20 月 21 日凭经验回答。此处选择政治态度作为不同结果的一个例子，因为首先，可以预期它们在许多方面与个人经济环境相关。其次，对不同富裕人群的政治态度的洞察可能会增加其他学科的现有研究，例如将民主反应偏见作为政治不平等的指标（Gilens，2012：第 70-96 页；Grimes 和 Esaiasson，2014 ；Bartels，2016 年：第 233-268 页；Elsässer、Hense 和 Schäfer，2016 年、2017 年）。对财富的兴趣增加以及将富人视为高收入者的传统概念提出了一个问题，即“富人”是否可以被视为就其政治态度而言是一个同质的群体。仅将他们定义为高收入者就足够了吗？为了阐明这个问题，通过提出两个相关问题来分析富裕人群之间的异质性：富裕的多样性是否重要？就政治态度而言，德国的富人是同质的群体吗？该分析基于德国社会经济委员会 (GSOEP) 的调查数据，主要针对 2005、2009 和 2014 年。虽然可用数据不是回答所提出问题的理想来源，但它是最好的来源到目前为止可用，提供对德国各种富裕人群的社会结果的初步探索性见解。这篇文章的结构如下。富裕种类部分回顾了以前对德国富裕人群的研究，包括如何定义和评估富裕阶层，并开发了一个差异化的框架来解释富裕种类，作为实证检验的基础。富裕和政治态度部分再次查阅现有文献，以推导出关于不同富裕类型之间的政治态度的假设。方法部分介绍了用于测试框架的数据和方法，其结果在结果部分中给出。最后，讨论部分讨论了结果，然后是一个简短的结论。富裕的种类 自凡勃伦 (1899) 和齐美尔 (1900) 的著作以来，社会学至少对富裕进行了分析。尽管如此，普遍缺乏研究还是经常受到关注和批评（例如 Imbusch，2003；Lauterbach 和 Ströing，2008；Page、Bartels 和 Seawright，2013）。在德国社会学中，相关成果主要来自两种文学流派的交集：传统的精英社会学（如 Hradil 和 Imbusch，2003；Hartmann，2013）和新的财富社会学（如 Druyen、Lauterbach 和 Grundmann，2008； Böwing-Schmalenbrock，2012；Spannagel，2013；Waitkus 和 Groh-Samberg，2018）。Lauterbach 和 Ströing (2008) 将富裕的系统定义为现有国际文献的综合体（图 1）。这个概念首先假设收入富裕的多元化分层，然后在下一步中通过包括财富来进一步区分。根据这个定义，就收入而言，富裕始于收入水平至少是平均值或中位数的两倍。最近的几项研究（例如 Becker，2003 年；Grabka 等人，2007 年；Druyen、Lauterbach 和 Grundmann，2008 年；Lauterbach、Druyen 和 Grundmann，2011 年）提出了收入和财富的综合视角（有时还有其他维度）的相关性；Peichl 和 Pestel，2011；BöwingSchmalenbrock，2012；Rowlingson 和 McKay，2012；Spannagel，2013；Skopek，2015；Keister 和 Lee，2017；Killewald、Pfeffer 和 Schachner，2017）。为了增加这些贡献，下面开发了一个框架，其中包括财富的来源，以分析具有不同富裕程度的个人在社会结果方面的差异。“富有”可以更准确地理解为不同形式富裕的异质组合。富有的定义是基于经济资源的三个维度：收入、财富和财富的来源。收入可以定义为可以从各种来源获得的经济资源流，例如劳动力、资本回报或政府转移。另一种研究较少和罕见的收入类型是通过外源来源获得的意外收入，如继承或彩票中奖。这两个过程都不​​是随机的。有充分的理由相信，那些境况较好的人更有可能获得遗产（例如。G。汉森，2014；Bönke、Corneo 和 Westermeier，2015 年：第 11-13 页）。另一方面，有证据表明彩票参与偏向于低收入群体和工人阶级（Beckert 和 Lutter，2009 年，2012 年）。将意外收入和遗产合并讨论的原因是，随着时间的推移，它们在 GSOEP 中是不可区分的。可以定期花费或储蓄的金额随着收入的增加而增加。因此，人们可以预期收入和财富之间存在高度相关性，但是，尤其是在（东）德，它们远非完美（Peichl 和 Pestel，2011 年）。Killewald、Pfeffer 和 Schachner（2017 年：第 388-390 页）也为《欧洲社会学评论》，2020 年，卷。36, No. 1 137 D ow naded rom http/academ ic.p. com /esr/article-at/36/1/136/5585947 by Max-Pck-Institut fer G esellsctsforschung 用户在 2020 年 2020 年 20 月 21 日美国，发现从长远来看，财富也不完全与收入相关。可支配收入的数量高度依赖于家庭星座。因此，收入通常用家庭等价收入来衡量：根据新的经合组织等价量表（Hagenaars、Vos 和 Zaidi，1996 年），相对于居住在其中的成人和儿童数量进行标准化的家庭总收入。富裕的第二个维度是财富，可以定义为不同资产的累积存量，例如房地产、贵重物品或金融资产。财富来自不同的收入来源——取决于个人行为，如消费和储蓄。收入和财富分配的分析表明，财富的分配明显低于收入（Frick、Grabka 和 Hauser，2010 年：第 122-124 页）。根据使用方式的不同，财富可以产生各种收入，例如股票红利、房产租金或艺术品等贵重物品的增值。