Bringing up the wealth disparities was more to point out that you have to ignore both class differentiation in the US and conditions as they actually exist to arrive at the conclusion that the entirety of the US working class are labor aristocrats, receiving some special privilege for cooperation with the bourgeoisie.
I get what you say, Steel's term of "labor aristocracy" is separated from those facts, as he uses them in a reduced Leninist sense, so that there doesn't have to be specific benefit as being part of the core is enough.
In terms of materialist analysis your point is in my opinion strong as it holds up that it can't be enough for us to have a term from one interpretation of theoretical framework that categorial contains the group we talk about, but doesn't allow us to differentiate farhter (if at all that is your goal).
Bringing up the wealth disparities was more to point out that you have to ignore both class differentiation in the US and conditions as they actually exist to arrive at the conclusion that the entirety of the US working class are labor aristocrats, receiving some special privilege for cooperation with the bourgeoisie.
I get what you say, Steel's term of "labor aristocracy" is separated from those facts, as he uses them in a reduced Leninist sense, so that there doesn't have to be specific benefit as being part of the core is enough.
In terms of materialist analysis your point is in my opinion strong as it holds up that it can't be enough for us to have a term from one interpretation of theoretical framework that categorial contains the group we talk about, but doesn't allow us to differentiate farhter (if at all that is your goal).