CONCEPT
Homoploutia
Milanovic's term for the structural condition in which the same individuals are simultaneously rich in both capital and labor income — a dissolution of the capital-labor divide that historically drove redistributive politics, now intensified dramatically by the AI transition.
Homoploutia names the condition Milanovic identified in twenty-first-century capitalism: the top of the income distribution is increasingly populated by individuals who are simultaneously among the highest-paid workers and the largest asset-owners. The AI engineer earning a seven-figure salary and holding equity worth tens of millions in the firm that employs her; the founder drawing executive compensation alongside founder shares; the venture capitalist whose management fees and carried interest place her at the top of both distributions. In previous eras, the wealthy divided cleanly into capitalists (capital income) and highly paid workers (labor income), and the tension between them drove redistributive politics. Homoploutia dissolves the tension by embodying both sides in the same person. The AI transition intensifies this pattern: the sector most enriched by AI is the sector where homoploutia is most pronounced, and the compounding of high labor and high capital income in the same individuals produces structural entrenchment resistant to conventional redistributive tools.
