> Not sure I agree with the 99% of planet. Even if a single member of the Australian parliament could command all of Australia, it would still only amount to commanding 0.3% the global population (or maybe 2% of NATO plus Japan). Maybe within Australia the individual member's power is more than 99% of population?
I think that's the wrong way to calculate the value?
OK, so, how to phrase this…
Imagine we were talking about money rather than power (because money can be quantified more easily, and is an imperfect token of power).
I believe the base salary for Australian MPs is AU$211,250/year, which is ~ USD 140,700/year. This means they earn more than 99% of the world precisely because:
> Most individuals just don't hold much power.
Still works when substituting in "money" for "power".
Saying that each random MP has more power than 99% of the world population, is very different than saying that each of them individually controls 99% of the power, which would be tautologically impossible.
Earning in the top 1% globally doesn't mean that the power is more then someone in top 1-2% percentile. That just doesn't translates that well across the globe. I'd also say it needs to be done in wealth terms, not income and then locally (because ability for some Austrilian member of parliament to reach far around the globe is limited).
> Earning … doesn't mean that the power …
It's an analogy to explain the point.
I'm saying the ranked list of people by power, random* MPs are in the 99th percentile.
I mean, is there even a single politician in the world who represents less than 99 people? (There used to be**, but any current examples?)
* OK, so that doesn't work over literally all polities — a Tuvalu MP might not have as much power as the parking attendant nearest to the Australian parliament building — but hopefully this at least helps clarify? Perhaps?
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs
If you count simple representation as power and disregard other representations of the same people for different things or by different people (basically, everone will be represented mulitple times), then 99 is enough. Otherwise might need quite a few more.