Hanna Kuusela: Top Earners and the Cultures of Wealth in Finland

Who are the Finnish top earners, where does their money come for, and what do they think of the society? In her talk, Academy Research Fellow Hanna Kuusela (Tampere University) discusses the different ways in which the Finnish top earners legitimise their own position at the top while undermining some of the basic characteristics of the Nordic model. The talk describes the different cultures of the rich inheritors, managers, and entrepreneurs belonging to the 0.1% of earners in Finland, and demonstrates how the top earners construct moral boundaries vis-à-vis their imagined others: the unemployed, the civil cervants, and the workers. Finally, the talk analyses how their processes of class-making are intertwined with the critique of the welfare state, its taxation, the tripartite cooperation, and also the entire democratic system.