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The Extractive Elite, also known as Rent-seeking Elite, Kleptocratic Elite, Unethical Elite, or Fake Elite, stand in contrast to the public-spirited, insubordinate, sustainable, scientific, true elite, which have been driven out of and are now almost non-existent in our current institutions.
The '''Extractive Elite''' is a term coined by Eric Weinstein to describe groups of so-called "elites" who derive power and privilege primarily through extraction, rent-seeking, and institutional capture rather than through productive or public-spirited contributions. The concept is contrasted with the notion of a "True Elite," who are characterized as insubordinate, scientific, sustainable, and oriented toward the public good. The Extractive Elite is also referred to as the ''Rent-seeking Elite'', ''Kleptocratic Elite'', ''Unethical Elite'', ''Anti-Elite'', ''Swamp Elite'', or ''Fake Elite''.


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The Extractive Elite is defined in opposition to the public-spirited, insubordinate, sustainable, scientific, [[True Elite]], which have been driven out of and are now almost non-existent in present-day institutions. While True Elites add value to society, the Extractive Elite consolidate advantage by extracting rents, suppressing dissent, and displacing those who contribute to broader institutional or societal flourishing.


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== Characteristics ==
Key features associated with the Extractive Elite include:


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* '''Rent-seeking and extraction''': Reliance on privileges and institutional rents rather than value creation. 
* '''Institutional capture''': Domination of organizations such as academia, government, and science agencies. 
* '''Displacement of True Elites''': Suppression or marginalization of productive, dissenting, or public-spirited elites. 
* '''Opacity and lack of accountability''': Preference for insider networks and avoidance of scrutiny. 
* '''Adaptation to stagnation''': Greater reliance on extraction under conditions of slower economic growth. 
* '''Narrative control''': Shaping public perceptions to entrench dominance, enforce "consensus", and suppress challengers. 
* '''Selective tolerance''': Offering multiple opportunities to loyalists while excluding dissenters.


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==On X==


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=== 2009 ===


{{#widget:Tweet|id=6236343675}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/6236343675
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Q: Cost(Collapse) >> Cost(Protected Dissenting Scientific Elite) --->
Cost(Cheap Academic Life) >> Cost(Expensive Academic Freedom)
|timestamp=2:33 PM · Dec 1, 2009
}}


{{#widget:Tweet|id=22746580160}}
=== 2010 ===


{{#widget:Tweet|id=1096130594742755328}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/22746580160
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=The subordination of the insobordinate elite:
"That Feynman is becoming a real pain"
http://bit.ly/moDE (as appendix F)
|timestamp=10:34 PM · Sep 1, 2010
}}


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=== 2016 ===


{{#widget:Tweet|id=1264676017634869248}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/799678548176834560
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Why do I always target "the rent-seeking elite" rather than "the elite"?


{{#widget:Tweet|id=1399289448227958784}}
B/C the two groups are bitter rivals & we need the latter to win.
|timestamp=6:19 PM · Nov 18, 2016
}}


{{#widget:Tweet|id=1404718772691161088}}
=== 2019 ===


{{#widget:Tweet|id=1415114475099738117}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1096133246100766721
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=But stop romanticizing the bottom up too. The bottom is a mess. The top is a mess. The best we can do is sort out what makes sense the best we can. Thanks for engaging. Hope it helps.


{{#widget:Tweet|id=1417630288906133510}}
Last thought: think about failure modes and always about systems of selective pressures. Ciao.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=normonics-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/normonics/status/1096128785798311936
|name=Joe Norman
|usernameurl=https://x.com/normonics
|username=normonics
|content=Overcentralization, elitism, and in the case that concerns me with you and the "IDW" is replacement of elites with other elites instead of dismantling of the structure that distorts bottom-up processes.
|timestamp=7:27 PM · Feb 14, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1096130594742755328
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=How do you feel about elite surgeons?
 
Elite special forces?
 
Elite athletes?
 
Elite pilots?
 
Elite Scientists and Researchers?
 
Forget the word elite. Yes, we need to recognize outliers rather than have the fake & rent-seeking elite privatize the true outliers who threaten them.
|timestamp=7:34 PM · Feb 14, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1096131757538066433
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Your true elite want to do a lot for the world. The rent-seeking elite find this terrifying. You don’t want me doing amateur brain surgery on your child because you want to democratize everything. I’m just not an elite musician so I let the top rise.There are limits to inclusion.
|timestamp=7:39 PM · Feb 14, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=normonics-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/normonics/status/1096132262301712385
|name=Joe Norman
|usernameurl=https://x.com/normonics
|username=normonics
|content=the elite who "Want to do a lot for the world" are precisely the ones who worry me
 
seduced by abstractions, they pave the road to hell with their good intentions.
|timestamp=7:41 PM · Feb 14, 2019
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1096132640216764417
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Yeah. Hate that.
|timestamp=7:42 PM · Feb 14, 2019
}}
|timestamp=7:45 PM · Feb 14, 2019
}}
 
 
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1096132305599381504
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Well, I do want my generals to decide what is best for me as I don’t know the military. But I want them accountable. But not overly so. You see where I’m going? We have to trust elites. But they can’t be private rent seekers and they can’t be incompetent or wholly unaccountable.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=normonics-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/normonics/status/1096132262301712385
|name=Joe Norman
|usernameurl=https://x.com/normonics
|username=normonics
|content=@EricWeinstein the kind of elitism that worries me is not "high performers" within a given domain, it is a social system where some are set up to decide for others what is "best" for them.
|timestamp=7:38 PM · Feb 14, 2019
}}
|timestamp=7:41 PM · Feb 14, 2019
}}
 
 
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1170353170142228485
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=The entire planet has become sick of unelected elites who are actually nothing of the kind.
 
O baƟlıyor...
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=timurkuran-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/timurkuran/status/1170217331307483137
|name=Timur Kuran
|usernameurl=https://x.com/timurkuran
|username=timurkuran
|content=A Turkish rap video on YouTube, #I CAN’T STAY QUIET, has been watched by 8.5M in one day, more than one-tenth of Turkey’s population. The video has touched a deep nerve. Vast numbers are yearning to speak freely and honestly about the regime’s rottenness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5K3IxINr7A
|timestamp=6:08 AM · Sep 8, 2019
}}
|timestamp=3:08 PM · Sep 7, 2019
}}
 
=== 2020 ===
 
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1264676017634869248
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Our incompetence is coda: the extractive elite trying to come to grips with a virus that can’t be beaten by signing pieces of paper in Manhattan, lobbying in Wash DC, or issuing sober consensus statements out of Cambridge.
 
It took an organized effort we couldn’t muster anymore.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1264676015860641794
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=At its core our last 50 years is the story of two Elites:
 
A) A Sustainable Elite.
B) An Extractive Elite.
 
and over that 1/2 century, the story was how B drove A out of our institutions newly unable to keep growing at the dizzying post-war rate to which they had wed themselves.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=nntaleb-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/nntaleb/status/1264637513718812674
|name=Nassim Nicholas Taleb
|usernameurl=https://x.com/nntaleb
|username=nntaleb
|content=I cannot live in societies that spend trillions on nuclear weapons yet are incapable of delivering COVID testing to their populations.
The world's pseudosophistication & misallocation of resources have been increasing...
|timestamp=7:20 PM · May 24, 2020
}}
|timestamp=9:53 PM · May 24, 2020
}}
|timestamp=9:53 PM · May 24, 2020
}}
 
=== 2021 ===
 
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1399289448227958784
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content='''This has everything to do with the political economy of elite overproduction and the extractive economics of rent seeking under lowered growth.'''
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1399289446445436934
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=If you’re an expert loyal to the system there are now almost always second chances. Even your second chances’ second chances get second chances.
 
If you question that system, there are almost never first chances. Even w/ the right credentials.
 
It wasn’t always this way however.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=ComicDaveSmith-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/ComicDaveSmith/status/1399160122761428994
|name=Dave Smith
|usernameurl=https://x.com/ComicDaveSmith
|username=ComicDaveSmith
|content=I’ve been obsessively paying attention to the news for about 15 years now and the most infuriating thing to me is that “experts” can get things completely wrong, mock the people who get them right, never apologize or even acknowledge it, and continue being “experts.”
|timestamp=12:25 AM · May 31, 2021
}}
|timestamp=8:59 AM · May 31, 2021
}}
|timestamp=8:59 AM · May 31, 2021
}}
 
 
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1404718772691161088
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content='''There’s no better way to destroy elitism than calling our unethical rich “the elite”.'''
 
Soon folks will want average relatable folks for their kid’s brain surgeon or good-enough hostage rescue units. Anyone else will remind them of a partner at Goldman conspiring at a fund raiser.
|timestamp=8:33 AM · Jun 15, 2021
}}
 
 
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1415114477264011265
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Moral: take care of the innovators you task to make you wealthy & secure. Particularly the heterodox leaders that won’t always get along with others. Then get out of the way w the social engineering. Share the STEM benefits with your NATO allies before giving them to your rivals.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1415114470632742914
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Then listen closely.
 
A) You stop giving CEO’s an ear when they whine about labor shortages. Cut off the visas.
 
B) You *spend* on STEM R&D. Sky-High Compensation w High Standards.
 
C) You purge *everything* that says “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” anywhere close to a STEM kid.
|timestamp=1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1415114472771919877
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=D) Kick the CCP out of US labs. Make them do their own scientific research, as to do it well requires freedom. Force CCP towards freedom through science & STEM rather than letting them pick the fruits of our freedom to challenge and question orthodoxy.
 
E) Hire our own heterodox.
|timestamp=1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1415114473916964864
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=F) Incentivize the leadership of our most critical institutions to promote people who won’t play well with others who are captured by groupthink. Earmark money to promote those who won’t easily  get along with co-workers when their co-workers are standing in the way of progress.
|timestamp=1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1415114475099738117
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=More or less we have to kickstart the American dream. '''And to do that requires a public spirited elite.'''
 
'''We need to purge ourselves of our fake elite.''' We are coming to hate fake experts.
 
We need real ones who are well paid. By us. Not by some revolving door baksheesh arrangement.
|timestamp=1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1415114476064579588
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=But I was cheering when Blake said one income. Because raising kids is about the most important job in the world. And if we are going to get rich enough to do it we need innovators worried about their next family vacation, not how to find two adjunct positions in adjacent states.
|timestamp=1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
}}
|timestamp=1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
}}
 
 
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630291036758016
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Soapbox speech over.
 
As always, thanks for listening and letting me try out these ideas at scale. 🙏
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630275660500994
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=The cognitive tools for understanding any rationale behind NIH funded Gain of Function Research in China are almost certainly being withheld.
 
Look at it from the point of a true believer in the system. “We have to not lose the bioweapon arms race & should keep our rivals close.”
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630276633579523
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=“But the public will never understand a partnership with our main rival as being safer than being frozen out of all CCP decisions. On the other hand we can’t be seen as engaging in a bioweapons arms race. So we had myriad ways to evade the optics of what we were actually doing.”
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630278248398852
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=“Then COVID got out. Suddenly the whole world was talking about zoonotic bat respiratory Corona viruses: a subject the public had never heard of before. Our excuses & proxies for what is essentially military strategy for containment of CCP biowarfare ambitions were center stage.”
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630280072896513
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=“Only we can’t talk about this. And our strategy that worked well enough when no one in the public knew “Gain of Function”, “Spike Protein” or “Zoonotic” terms stopped working when everyone on the planet was forced to become amateur scientists. Then we lost ‘Lab Leak is racism’.”
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630281159168005
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=“So what do we do? Do we have an open town-hall to explain all things that are part of delicate multi decade Wash DC political insider theory like “Constructive engagement”, “Iranian Nuclear Containment”, “Two State Solution”? Of course not. That’s why we have an expert class.”
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630282102960129
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content='''So we sit around with the expert class withholding all the cognitive tools “we the people” need to figure out whether we have the CORRECT public spirited Elite.''' Which we do not.
 
Thus the ‘elite’ get more and more resentful that we are meddling in ‘their’ strategic endeavors. Ha.
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630283101212672
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=The idea that it’s time to come clean about Epstein, Iran, the West Bank, Strategic Engagement, Nuclear Bluffing, Climate & Wealth, internal spying, Assange and Snowden, simply never occurs to a class that believes it is acting in a way that can NEVER be open to public scrutiny.
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630284099428353
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Start from this insider premise that is never said out loud, “The purpose of democracy is to give the public the most minimal choice over multi-decade cryptic strategies that must be managed by insider classes, so that they can only slightly course correct from expert consensus.”
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630285022208006
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=The populist premise is simpler: “You insiders seem to be incompetent at your jobs & more than competent at your extraction of wealth & obfuscation of all with which you have been entrusted. '''How can we force you ‘elite’ to account for your non-elite malfeasance and incompetence?”'''
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630286003662848
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=That’s how I see it. '''We have to stop talking about this in the exact terms we are handed by the very ‘elite’ who don’t want us talking about the real issues.''' We need to stop using the framings we’re handed.
 
For example, “Gain of Function” is largely a euphemism for “weaponized”.
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630286955769858
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content='''Do I believe in an actual Elite that cannot share everything with the public. Yeah. Think about it; It cannot be otherwise.'''
 
'''Do I believe in this *elite*? This is the Keystone Cops meets Mr Magoo.'''
 
So I am neither a populist nor a defender of the system as it is currently found.
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630287891103745
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=We should join the populists in demanding answers based on pathological extractive, unethical and incompetent behavior.
 
But you cannot “burn it all the fuck down”, put it all on the blockchain or vote for complete transparency either.
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630288906133510
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content='''We need a well paid actual public spirited elite public servant class.'''
 
And no one I know is willing to say this. They either defend the system as is, or want some radical revolution.
 
We need new folks in their 20s-50s. Not Fauci. Not Biden. Not Trump. Not Pelosi. Not McConnell.
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1417630290080530437
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=If you’ve been in power for a long time and are now in your 70s & 80s? It is simply time to go. That’s not ageism.
 
That’s an IMPLICIT part of the system. We’ve never before remotely had a President & core group this out of touch, this old, and this technically over their heads.
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
|timestamp=11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
}}
 
=== 2025 ===
 
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1970613472858907066
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=This is not the elite behind the lie.
 
The actual elite are the American and European scientists. It’s the anti-elite that hate our own elite STEM people who demand to be cut in.
 
Beware of calling our *anti-elite*, the elite. The elite are the ones taking the abuse full force.
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1970613470124282197
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=It is the damndest thing.
 
We are, for example, decades in to a MASSIVE campaign by employers to portray American cititizens and Europeans as incapabale of doing what we are better at than anyone else on earth: science.
 
It’s a multi-decade lie, broadcast 24/7 in surround sound.
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=Fuguer-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/Fuguer/status/1970610196767744396
|name=Fuguer
|usernameurl=https://x.com/Fuguer
|username=Fuguer
|content=One example seems to be mass migration. No matter how hard people plead and vote they’re ignored by elites. We need something different. This is an existential crisis
|timestamp=10:04 PM · Sep 23, 2025
}}
|timestamp=10:17 PM · Sep 23, 2025
}}
|timestamp=10:17 PM · Sep 23, 2025
}}
 
== Related Concepts ==
 
* [[Knarc]]
* [[The Looting Party]]
* [[Sharp Minds vs Sharp Elbows]]
* [[True Elite]]


[[Category:Ericisms]]
[[Category:Ericisms]]

Latest revision as of 03:29, 24 September 2025

The Extractive Elite is a term coined by Eric Weinstein to describe groups of so-called "elites" who derive power and privilege primarily through extraction, rent-seeking, and institutional capture rather than through productive or public-spirited contributions. The concept is contrasted with the notion of a "True Elite," who are characterized as insubordinate, scientific, sustainable, and oriented toward the public good. The Extractive Elite is also referred to as the Rent-seeking Elite, Kleptocratic Elite, Unethical Elite, Anti-Elite, Swamp Elite, or Fake Elite.

The Extractive Elite is defined in opposition to the public-spirited, insubordinate, sustainable, scientific, True Elite, which have been driven out of and are now almost non-existent in present-day institutions. While True Elites add value to society, the Extractive Elite consolidate advantage by extracting rents, suppressing dissent, and displacing those who contribute to broader institutional or societal flourishing.

CharacteristicsEdit

Key features associated with the Extractive Elite include:

  • Rent-seeking and extraction: Reliance on privileges and institutional rents rather than value creation.
  • Institutional capture: Domination of organizations such as academia, government, and science agencies.
  • Displacement of True Elites: Suppression or marginalization of productive, dissenting, or public-spirited elites.
  • Opacity and lack of accountability: Preference for insider networks and avoidance of scrutiny.
  • Adaptation to stagnation: Greater reliance on extraction under conditions of slower economic growth.
  • Narrative control: Shaping public perceptions to entrench dominance, enforce "consensus", and suppress challengers.
  • Selective tolerance: Offering multiple opportunities to loyalists while excluding dissenters.

On XEdit

2009Edit

 
Eric Weinstein

Q: Cost(Collapse) >> Cost(Protected Dissenting Scientific Elite) ---> Cost(Cheap Academic Life) >> Cost(Expensive Academic Freedom)

2:33 PM · Dec 1, 2009

2010Edit

 
Eric Weinstein

The subordination of the insobordinate elite: "That Feynman is becoming a real pain" http://bit.ly/moDE (as appendix F)

10:34 PM · Sep 1, 2010

2016Edit

 
Eric Weinstein

Why do I always target "the rent-seeking elite" rather than "the elite"?

B/C the two groups are bitter rivals & we need the latter to win.

6:19 PM · Nov 18, 2016

2019Edit

 
Joe Norman

Overcentralization, elitism, and in the case that concerns me with you and the "IDW" is replacement of elites with other elites instead of dismantling of the structure that distorts bottom-up processes.

7:27 PM · Feb 14, 2019
 
Eric Weinstein

How do you feel about elite surgeons?

Elite special forces?

Elite athletes?

Elite pilots?

Elite Scientists and Researchers?

Forget the word elite. Yes, we need to recognize outliers rather than have the fake & rent-seeking elite privatize the true outliers who threaten them.

7:34 PM · Feb 14, 2019
 
Eric Weinstein

Your true elite want to do a lot for the world. The rent-seeking elite find this terrifying. You don’t want me doing amateur brain surgery on your child because you want to democratize everything. I’m just not an elite musician so I let the top rise.There are limits to inclusion.

7:39 PM · Feb 14, 2019
 
Joe Norman

the elite who "Want to do a lot for the world" are precisely the ones who worry me

seduced by abstractions, they pave the road to hell with their good intentions.

7:41 PM · Feb 14, 2019
 
Eric Weinstein

Yeah. Hate that.

7:42 PM · Feb 14, 2019
 
Eric Weinstein

But stop romanticizing the bottom up too. The bottom is a mess. The top is a mess. The best we can do is sort out what makes sense the best we can. Thanks for engaging. Hope it helps.

Last thought: think about failure modes and always about systems of selective pressures. Ciao.

7:45 PM · Feb 14, 2019


 
Joe Norman

@EricWeinstein the kind of elitism that worries me is not "high performers" within a given domain, it is a social system where some are set up to decide for others what is "best" for them.

7:38 PM · Feb 14, 2019
 
Eric Weinstein

Well, I do want my generals to decide what is best for me as I don’t know the military. But I want them accountable. But not overly so. You see where I’m going? We have to trust elites. But they can’t be private rent seekers and they can’t be incompetent or wholly unaccountable.

7:41 PM · Feb 14, 2019


 
Eric Weinstein

The entire planet has become sick of unelected elites who are actually nothing of the kind.

O baƟlıyor...

3:08 PM · Sep 7, 2019
 
Timur Kuran

A Turkish rap video on YouTube, #I CAN’T STAY QUIET, has been watched by 8.5M in one day, more than one-tenth of Turkey’s population. The video has touched a deep nerve. Vast numbers are yearning to speak freely and honestly about the regime’s rottenness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5K3IxINr7A

6:08 AM · Sep 8, 2019

2020Edit

 
Eric Weinstein

At its core our last 50 years is the story of two Elites:

A) A Sustainable Elite. B) An Extractive Elite.

and over that 1/2 century, the story was how B drove A out of our institutions newly unable to keep growing at the dizzying post-war rate to which they had wed themselves.

9:53 PM · May 24, 2020
 
Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I cannot live in societies that spend trillions on nuclear weapons yet are incapable of delivering COVID testing to their populations. The world's pseudosophistication & misallocation of resources have been increasing...

7:20 PM · May 24, 2020
 
Eric Weinstein

Our incompetence is coda: the extractive elite trying to come to grips with a virus that can’t be beaten by signing pieces of paper in Manhattan, lobbying in Wash DC, or issuing sober consensus statements out of Cambridge.

It took an organized effort we couldn’t muster anymore.

9:53 PM · May 24, 2020

2021Edit

 
Eric Weinstein

If you’re an expert loyal to the system there are now almost always second chances. Even your second chances’ second chances get second chances.

If you question that system, there are almost never first chances. Even w/ the right credentials.

It wasn’t always this way however.

8:59 AM · May 31, 2021
 
Dave Smith

I’ve been obsessively paying attention to the news for about 15 years now and the most infuriating thing to me is that “experts” can get things completely wrong, mock the people who get them right, never apologize or even acknowledge it, and continue being “experts.”

12:25 AM · May 31, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

This has everything to do with the political economy of elite overproduction and the extractive economics of rent seeking under lowered growth.

8:59 AM · May 31, 2021


 
Eric Weinstein

There’s no better way to destroy elitism than calling our unethical rich “the elite”.

Soon folks will want average relatable folks for their kid’s brain surgeon or good-enough hostage rescue units. Anyone else will remind them of a partner at Goldman conspiring at a fund raiser.

8:33 AM · Jun 15, 2021


 
Eric Weinstein

Then listen closely.

A) You stop giving CEO’s an ear when they whine about labor shortages. Cut off the visas.

B) You *spend* on STEM R&D. Sky-High Compensation w High Standards.

C) You purge *everything* that says “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” anywhere close to a STEM kid.

1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

D) Kick the CCP out of US labs. Make them do their own scientific research, as to do it well requires freedom. Force CCP towards freedom through science & STEM rather than letting them pick the fruits of our freedom to challenge and question orthodoxy.

E) Hire our own heterodox.

1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

F) Incentivize the leadership of our most critical institutions to promote people who won’t play well with others who are captured by groupthink. Earmark money to promote those who won’t easily get along with co-workers when their co-workers are standing in the way of progress.

1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

More or less we have to kickstart the American dream. And to do that requires a public spirited elite.

We need to purge ourselves of our fake elite. We are coming to hate fake experts.

We need real ones who are well paid. By us. Not by some revolving door baksheesh arrangement.

1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

But I was cheering when Blake said one income. Because raising kids is about the most important job in the world. And if we are going to get rich enough to do it we need innovators worried about their next family vacation, not how to find two adjunct positions in adjacent states.

1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

Moral: take care of the innovators you task to make you wealthy & secure. Particularly the heterodox leaders that won’t always get along with others. Then get out of the way w the social engineering. Share the STEM benefits with your NATO allies before giving them to your rivals.

1:02 AM · Jul 14, 2021


 
Eric Weinstein

The cognitive tools for understanding any rationale behind NIH funded Gain of Function Research in China are almost certainly being withheld.

Look at it from the point of a true believer in the system. “We have to not lose the bioweapon arms race & should keep our rivals close.”

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

“But the public will never understand a partnership with our main rival as being safer than being frozen out of all CCP decisions. On the other hand we can’t be seen as engaging in a bioweapons arms race. So we had myriad ways to evade the optics of what we were actually doing.”

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

“Then COVID got out. Suddenly the whole world was talking about zoonotic bat respiratory Corona viruses: a subject the public had never heard of before. Our excuses & proxies for what is essentially military strategy for containment of CCP biowarfare ambitions were center stage.”

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

“Only we can’t talk about this. And our strategy that worked well enough when no one in the public knew “Gain of Function”, “Spike Protein” or “Zoonotic” terms stopped working when everyone on the planet was forced to become amateur scientists. Then we lost ‘Lab Leak is racism’.”

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

“So what do we do? Do we have an open town-hall to explain all things that are part of delicate multi decade Wash DC political insider theory like “Constructive engagement”, “Iranian Nuclear Containment”, “Two State Solution”? Of course not. That’s why we have an expert class.”

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

So we sit around with the expert class withholding all the cognitive tools “we the people” need to figure out whether we have the CORRECT public spirited Elite. Which we do not.

Thus the ‘elite’ get more and more resentful that we are meddling in ‘their’ strategic endeavors. Ha.

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

The idea that it’s time to come clean about Epstein, Iran, the West Bank, Strategic Engagement, Nuclear Bluffing, Climate & Wealth, internal spying, Assange and Snowden, simply never occurs to a class that believes it is acting in a way that can NEVER be open to public scrutiny.

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

Start from this insider premise that is never said out loud, “The purpose of democracy is to give the public the most minimal choice over multi-decade cryptic strategies that must be managed by insider classes, so that they can only slightly course correct from expert consensus.”

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

The populist premise is simpler: “You insiders seem to be incompetent at your jobs & more than competent at your extraction of wealth & obfuscation of all with which you have been entrusted. How can we force you ‘elite’ to account for your non-elite malfeasance and incompetence?”

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

That’s how I see it. We have to stop talking about this in the exact terms we are handed by the very ‘elite’ who don’t want us talking about the real issues. We need to stop using the framings we’re handed.

For example, “Gain of Function” is largely a euphemism for “weaponized”.

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

Do I believe in an actual Elite that cannot share everything with the public. Yeah. Think about it; It cannot be otherwise.

Do I believe in this *elite*? This is the Keystone Cops meets Mr Magoo.

So I am neither a populist nor a defender of the system as it is currently found.

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

We should join the populists in demanding answers based on pathological extractive, unethical and incompetent behavior.

But you cannot “burn it all the fuck down”, put it all on the blockchain or vote for complete transparency either.

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

We need a well paid actual public spirited elite public servant class.

And no one I know is willing to say this. They either defend the system as is, or want some radical revolution.

We need new folks in their 20s-50s. Not Fauci. Not Biden. Not Trump. Not Pelosi. Not McConnell.

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

If you’ve been in power for a long time and are now in your 70s & 80s? It is simply time to go. That’s not ageism.

That’s an IMPLICIT part of the system. We’ve never before remotely had a President & core group this out of touch, this old, and this technically over their heads.

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021
 
Eric Weinstein

Soapbox speech over.

As always, thanks for listening and letting me try out these ideas at scale. 🙏

11:39 PM · Jul 20, 2021

2025Edit

 
Eric Weinstein

It is the damndest thing.

We are, for example, decades in to a MASSIVE campaign by employers to portray American cititizens and Europeans as incapabale of doing what we are better at than anyone else on earth: science.

It’s a multi-decade lie, broadcast 24/7 in surround sound.

10:17 PM · Sep 23, 2025
 
Fuguer

One example seems to be mass migration. No matter how hard people plead and vote they’re ignored by elites. We need something different. This is an existential crisis

10:04 PM · Sep 23, 2025
 
Eric Weinstein

This is not the elite behind the lie.

The actual elite are the American and European scientists. It’s the anti-elite that hate our own elite STEM people who demand to be cut in.

Beware of calling our *anti-elite*, the elite. The elite are the ones taking the abuse full force.

10:17 PM · Sep 23, 2025

Related ConceptsEdit

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