[WS:] It is a bit more complicated than that. I never doubted that, economically speaking, large numbers of college educated professionals are members of the working class. I am certainly in that class and so are most folks on this list. In some of my earlier postings I used the term "cognitariat" to describe them.
Of course - occupational groups are not homogeneous - there are star performers and there are grunts.
But even more importantly, income alone is not enough to determine class membership. Ideology, life style and aesthetics play equally if not more important role. Check out Bourdieu's book "Distinctions" on that http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/bourdieu-review.htm.
This is why members of the cognitariat espouse ideologies, like entrepreneurial libertarianism, that puts them in a different class than "ordinary" proles. Calling it "false consciousness" is just name calling that obscures more than it explains.
Whether these guys and gals are part of the "power elite" depends on the interpretation and meaning of "power elite" - obviously - but I would not use that term to describe them. I used the term technostructure instead. The most important part of this is that technostructure tends to hold certain ideology - entrepreneurial libertarianism - that guides how they vote. Political parties know that and try to capture these sentiments to get elected. That is all that there is to it. It does not mean that technostructure is part of the "power elite" but rather that their sentiments sway both positions and electoral rhetoric of political parties.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."