The problem described here seems to come primarily from the fact that nearly every single "meritocratic" measure that we use is highly correlated with income in large part because income is a VERY good predictor of future success. Finding a predictor of future success that cannot be gamed by income is exceedingly difficult and of vital importance of we wish to continue this pseudoquantitative approach to measuring human performance as a criteria for admission to ever more elite opportunities.
Modern aristocracies perpetuate themselves across generations by training at the school and in the family when young, and then so-called "competition" in the market place. The anthropology/ sociology theory that looks at these dynamics is generally known as Practice Theory:
The current system has the dual advantages of plausible deniability (anybody can, in theory, get into Stanford and become a master of the universe, but family income and culture radically boost your SATs and character), and it allows for new blood to enter the system more easily than when you needed a pedigree.
Perhaps they fuss because it's idiotic to tie it to race when it doesn't need to be. Just call it 'socioeconomic privilege'. It's completely unacceptable to call someone who is poor/uneducated "black disadvantaged", why would you think the inverse is okay? Stanford is rife with asian students from well-off families, illustrating that it has very little to do with race.
I don't see why. There's nothing wrong with being black, unless you're saying there is. Statistically they're a more disadvantaged group because of obvious generational challenges other ethnicities inflicted. Most people are aware of this, and using the term 'white' for the corollary is simple information encoding.
It's not encoding any useful information other than your racist assumptions. The only difference between "privilege" and "white privilege" is a pointless correlation. What extra information can you possibly think it provides besides information about the person that uses it.
Would you be comfortable with saying that someone who is committing a crime is "acting black" because black people have a higher prison enrollment?
It's not encoding any useful information other than your racist assumptions. The only difference between "privilege" and "white privilege" is a pointless correlation. What extra information can you possibly think it provides besides information about the person that uses it.
Would you be comfortable with saying that someone who is committing a crime is "acting black" because black people have a higher prison enrollment?
>'acting black' yes that would be racist, because that's speaking of the individual.
This criteria is nonsense. If you have an asian guy committing a crime and you say he's acting black because he didn't get enough white privilege, both of those components are racist. His crime and his relative privilege level have nothing to do with his skin color.
This is narrowly true, but broadly false. The concept of 'white privledge' relates to the concept of 'white man's burden', which is european in origin. Nobody debates that indians, japanese, and other asian societies aren't highly adept at elitism.
White privilege is just one type of privilege, it's not the only one. Rich white guys get two sorts of privilege - not only are police less likely to stop them because of their race (for instance), if they do get stopped they will be better able to defend themselves in a legal manner (because of their wealth and probable education levels).
Whereas a poor white kid might be less likely to be stopped, but also not really able to defend themselves if they are stopped.
Finally, a poor black kid is more likely to get stopped and not really able to defend themselves if they are stopped.
"At Harvard College and here, at Yale Law School (two places where students have skillfully and bravely compiled data that their Universities suppress), as many students come from households in the top one percent as from the entire bottom half of the income distribution."
Stunning. But no surprise you invest in your kids credentials if you can afford it.
Can someone propose a way the free market can be considered fair without the definition of 'fair' being defined as 'market-determined'?
> But although it was once the engine of American social mobility, meritocracy today blocks equality of opportunity.
This reminds me somewhat of the phrase "kicking away the ladder" that Chomsky mentions, in a different context:
> Well, that’s what the intellectual property rights are for. In fact there’s a name for it in economic history. Friedrich List, famous German political economist in the 19th century, who was actually borrowing from Andrew Hamilton, called it “kicking away the ladder”. First you use state power and violence to develop, then you kick away those procedures so that other people can’t do it. [1]
Here is my poorly paraphrased version of the idea:
1. use whatever means are available to obtain
a position of advantage (the ladder).
2. now, let us change the rules so from this
moment forth we shall compete upon our equal
merits, without resorting to such ugly means
as "ladders" to obtain advantage.
3. note however, that i still remain in a
position of absolute advantage, due to my
previous use of the ladder, which you now
cannot access.
4. ho ho ho, "meritocracy" / "free trade" / etc.
It's fine to include meritocracy in #4, but why free trade? I know that free trade is often a fiscally conservative issue, but it simply helps all of us by removing barriers to trade. The wealth of the world increases from it.
///edit: And actually, I want to continue and make a claim.
Barriers to free trade _are_ an act of Kicking Out the Ladder. If we look at import taxes, they're just national protectionism. Which is possibly understandable if we're protecting a vital-to-war industry. But the U.S. has sugar import tariffs and makes our sugar ~40% more expensive than the rest of the world. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/06/us-trade-po... (I know heritage is a conservative thinktank, just using it for the graph.) Our sugar tariffs just protects a small handful of cane sugar farmers/refiners in the US, at the cost to everyone, and with lost business to poor countries in the caribbean, who could probably use some more sugar sales. We're helping people with this tariff, but they're well-off americans we're helping. We could be help caribbean economies!!
And if we actually did want to protect vital resources, then why don't we ban hard-drive imports? You saw how Thailand's flooding knocked over hard drive production. What if a hostile government took over Thailand's hard drive production?
And furthermore, most of the government's foray's into regulating the economy are, or eventually become, acts of Kicking out the Ladder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture By even giving this kind of power to the government, you're asking for it to be abused.
Let's face it. What's most important in life/business is social access and maintaining trust/confidence/respect to stay in those relevant circles in order to keep it. IOW, staying in the members' clubs, secret societies, party circuits, etc.
Example: Could Luci have met Larry anywhere other than a Stanford party? Probably not.
that is also what I have independently observed, though not phrased as eloquently.
.
(slightly off topic)
I have to say I'm very thankful to have found HN. I grew up in a decent, moderately sized city (300k) going to a private religious school with children whose parents were similarly strongly interested in the intellectual development of their children.
I had access to all the sports teams. I played soccer through Varsity, played with the golf team [but note I was not on the golf team...lol], and basketball in middle school. I played piano for 8 years. I attended one of the top 5 schools of my field in the nation, and graduated into a small company with other graduates from my school, MIT, etc. From 'good places'.
Because of this, education was always something I always took for granted. I always valued it, but always took it for granted. Some of my education, however, took humans for granted. Your value to society was sometimes considered limited by what you could produce. Additionally, many of those I highschooled and undergraduated with (mainly other purported Christians who I have since determined were not living congruently with stated beliefs) held little reservation filtering people out of their life based on, I'll call it,
'being dumb'.
This always bothered me. As fruit of my religion [mainly 'made in God's image', combined with looking at the life Jesus lived] I believed in the intrinsic value of the human, so I always sought to correct for it: because I always tried my hardest, it never occurred to me how people could willfully and knowingly not aspire themselves to something greater than what required minimal effort. Everyone I grew up with did [though, in hindsight, for different reasons than I], I did, and my parents did, so naturally I assumed everyone else did, too. As such, I was regularly perplexed at the value judgements certain colleagues would place on other members of humanity...like me...because they miscategorized generational challenges I was facing as 'being dumb'. Damaging prejudice.
So I left that company, and struck out on my own. I have since discovered what a rare breed my background nurtured, and now understand the wisdom in filtering those you spend time with. Instead of a prideful superiority [which I certainly observed], I exercise with a cautious respect for, and in protection of, talent and time. I exercise without placing value judgements on the people I come in contact with, but I do judge the values of the people I spend time with. In this way I safely continue to respect their humanity, and avoid pride.
It's only since I moved and became aware of my need to protect that I became aware of how hard it is to find knowledge seekers. And so, when I come across someone from a different field but similar excellence, who carries with them persuasive content helpful for advancement, I am thankful. I also realized I need to stop spending so much time trying to argue with people-- because most people aren't actually listening, aren't actually seeking.
And so I am thankful to have found HackerNews, this article, and shared insights like yours.
It's very important to surround yourself with excellence. You'll become the ones you're around, and believe their idiocy, if you're not careful.
May I ask, would you consider a waitress talented? Based on your value structure, I'm very curious to know how you'd feel about someone like a waitress or a cashier.
Assume that this is their full-time job, and that they have no ability to attend a university due to a series of unfortunate events which left them saddled with debts they cannot hope to overcome unless they focus full-time on overcoming them. So they take what jobs they can. Are they talented or excellent?
It would seem that if one takes your value structure to heart, then you'll end up rejecting anyone from your life who aren't among the lucky few -- as you were -- of having no unfortunate events in their life, and would deem those people not worth allowing into your life, as they certainly aren't excellent.
A friend of mine used to work in a coffee shop. They often told me about people who would come in and act as if the workers existed only to serve them. I found this hard to believe. I knew such people existed, but it seemed improbable that that they were so common. Yet they were.
Is there a chance that if your mentality is to surround yourself with excellence, then you'll end up forgetting how to respect those who aren't, through no fault of their own?
depends, how well are they putting their talents to use? Are they challenging themselves every day? Or do they not have energy to? Or are they lazy and don't give a damn?
Regardless, I still seek to show love and smile and courtesy when interacting with them, because they're human. That doesn't mean I have to spend time with them as serious friends.
If you clearly define "fairness" as you see it, you can test whether free markets or government controlled ones are the ones which come closest to satisfying your preferences. There are a number of paradigms, Haidt describes two visions of fairness: one of equality and another of proportionality.[1]
Under most definitions of social justice (though not all the ones focusing on relative income distributions), the free market has better outcomes than more socialist systems. Free markets allow for liberty and greater prosperity, and this results in healthier, richer citizens with the freedom to pursue a good life. Free markets also encourage sympathy, trust, and fellow-feeling.[2]
Focusing on a measure of equality such as national GINI coefficients, the USA is closest to Phillipines, Peru, Uruguay, and Cameroon.[3] Does the GINI translate to "fairness"? Which country of the five would you prefer to live in if you were at a given position of the income distribution? Which has the freest markets? Which is most "fair"? Does the GINI convey much information about being rich or poor in a country?
I think you've mistaken two desireable dimensions as a choice. A country like Norway beats the U.S. in both GDP per capita (PPP and nominal) and in all measures of inequality.
I was making a different point: that measures of equality are not equivalent to measures of 'goodness' or proportionality. The statistics you are using are biased against the USA because of the high rate of immigration to the USA; if you control for this, the non-immigrant US citizen PPP and per capita GDP are much closer to Norway's (though I'm not sure whether the US is higher or lower than Norway). I have lost the source for this, but can provide you with this citation that shows what a difference there is between the largely unskilled first generation immigrants (that make up a large portion of the US population), and later generations.[1]
disclosure: I am neither American or Norwegian by country of birth or residence
There's an implied choice just by bringing up the subject of proportionality.
As for stats we can attack a legion of asterisks to them but that misses the point: there are rich countries that are not unequal. Proportionality is not relevant to the discussion about what the US should do to restore truer meritocracy.
It's interesting how this article undermines most modern narratives about inequality while simultaneously maintaining a proper liberal mood affiliation.
According to the article, the "aristocracy" preserves itself by educating it's children well and teaching them to succeed on their own merits. Even then, those children must work extremely hard in order to maintain their position. And there are no real barriers to entry; in principle, anyone can do this, it's just that the wealthy are the ones who actually wind up doing this (probably because they are the ones who recognize the value of it).
In short, the 1% are the 1% because they are better than the rest, and through hard work and good parenting the same is true of their children.
Yet somehow, the article makes these exact same claims in a manner that will probably avoid anger by left wing sorts. I'm impressed.
The narrative assumes that working hard necessarily creates value and thus merit, but that's not always true. For example, the Oracle Java lawsuit vs. Google, or SCO vs. IBM were immensely expensive, surely involved many of these grads, and yet created very little value to the majority of society. There are plenty of other frivolous lawsuits out there.
This narrative only escapes liberal disapproval if liberals fail to question the value of the legal process. So no better time to deliver this speech than a Yale Law commencement.
The narrative assumes that working hard necessarily creates value for oneself, by investing in oneself as an asset. It makes no claims to one's effort building value for society as a whole.
Exactly. As per my previous comment, the currency of merit being traded in the orator's meritocracy is only defined within the Ivy Leauge-al community. The currency of merit that SHOULD matter is based on the collective suffering of humanity.
That's certainly a valid reading but I doubt that's how liberals would read it. The parent comment points out that the article does much to avoid upsetting a liberal reading-- which is a good point (and I agree)-- but probably not liberals thinking critically of the piece (which they likely won't-- it's a commencement address).
For a moment let's say that you're correct: the 1% indeed worked harder and smarter than the 99% to get there. Even given that, I think the important point that you're missing from the speech is that they are being rewarded much, much more than they used to for that. I don't believe that they are working much, much harder, or that they are much, much smarter, it's just that the reward Pareto curve has gotten that much steeper.
And what I think the author is arguing is that that's not necessarily a deserved, or good, thing.
Places like Harvard and Yale used to educate the elites themselves, but no more. Today the elites are the billionaires and hundred-millionaires who own the country's capital. Harvard and Yale educate the people who work directly for the elites - lawyers, CEOs, financiers, etc.
Like the Praetorian Guard of Ancient Rome, they derive significant power and wealth from the fact that they take orders directly from the elites. But since they are not the actual elite, they must endure intense vetting and culling at every level, and work hard often in harsh conditions (also like the Praetorians of old).
So the comparison in the original PDF is not exactly apples to apples.
I very rarely hear people complaining that the rewards for hard work and good education are too high.
Usually the claim is that the people at the top inherited their position rather than earning it, and that others didn't have a fair shot at getting it.
Obviously the latter claim is a far better narrative.
If the rewards for the people at the very top are disproportionate to the work and risk-taking that they've put in, that's a distortion which has negative effects on the whole system.
We're talking about the "New Aristocracy". In extremis that's where you're either in the elite, or barely subsisting. It doesn't matter how meritorious the admissions to the upper class are - it's an awful way to live for nearly everyone, and where it's been implemented it's been marked by abuse and stagnation.
From a motivational standpoint, of course the incentives of a great reward matter. But there has to be a reason for everyone from 2nd place downward to participate.
In extremis that's where you're either in the elite, or barely subsisting.
You are conflating inequality with poverty. To recognize that they aren't the same thing, come visit the highly equal society of India or Bangladesh.
Also, the more you make a curve convex (and increasing), the more incentives it creates for everyone. Proof: convexity = u''(x). Increasing u''(x) increases u'(x)=int u''(x) dx. Since u'(x) is incentive, the proof is complete.
And while alleviating absolute poverty is great, the point I'm making is that a large middle class is a tremendous driver of many positive societal outcomes - politically, economically, and socially.
You can't just take a steepening reward structure out of that context.
You cherrypicked the one number (CIA GINI) for India that was above average, and not even above the US.
India UNR/P = 8.6, WB Gini = 33.6, CIA R/P = 8.6, CIA Gini = 42.8
USA UNR/P = 15.9, WB Gini = 41.1, CIA R/P = 15, CIA Gini = 45
I have no idea what you mean by "middle class" - there are many possible definitions.
Now that your claims about incentives and your conflation of poverty and inequality are debunked, you still believe that inequality is somehow bad? What facts (if any) would cause you to reject this belief?
Wait, wait. You're the one that claimed that India was a "highly equal society" - the burden of proof is on you. Your numbers are comparing India with the US, which is an unequal society, so you haven't provided it yet.
And you really believe that you've "debunked" my claims by referencing what happens to a pure mathematical abstraction? I'm not even sure how to address that. You can't honestly believe that models have influence over reality, and not the other way around?
And I'm not claiming that inequality is bad. It's necessary, for example, to accommodate risk. All I've said is that it matters how much inequality there is, and having too much distorts things. The only claim I've made as to what constitutes too much is the level found in aristocratic societies.
Are you arguing the opposite, that the degree of inequality has no great effect on a society? Or that the repercussions aren't negative as a country approaches the level that is marked by the formation of an aristocracy?
I shouldn't have said "highly equal", since that implies some sort of absolute standard of equality. It's certainly more equal than the US or UK, and according to all the statistics we've both cited except for CIA Gini, is comparable to France or other non-Scandinavian euro nations.
You made a mathematical claim about a mathematical construct (incentive): From a motivational standpoint, of course the incentives of a great reward matter. But there has to be a reason for everyone from 2nd place downward to participate.
I gave a mathematical response. If you don't believe that incentives govern behavior, then why did you bring them up and make incorrect claims about them?
The only argument I make is that I've seen no convincing evidence that inequality matters much. At best I've seen a few cross-country correlations between inequality and other bad things. Even left wing types don't find such evidence very convincing, or at least they don't after I replace the X axis with "% single mothers" or "% black people" (increasing both the r^2 and social unacceptability of the conclusion).
Well, in my mind you've exemplified perfectly what's wrong with libertarians: they believe models over reality. What else would let them so ardently believe in an economic system that's never been actually demonstrated to work.
You argue that, by mathematical definition, a steepening Pareto curve will increase motivation for everyone on it, and that: "Now that your claims about incentives and your conflation of poverty and inequality are debunked[...]"
Have you considered the possibility that in the actual world the curve doesn't strictly conform to the mathematical one? That it flattens early, or that the whole thing is translated downward? Or that it's not a Pareto curve but one that is similar? Or that (as has a lot of evidence behind it) that socially-based incentives are sensitive to relative inequality, not absolute? I pointed to an abstraction for illustration, and you made claims based on that abstraction and called it proof of the real world.
This is economics: there's no such thing as "debunking", there's no such thing as "proof". There's evidence, and there's models that maybe explain some aspects of it better than others, from a very narrow view. Models can't demonstrate anything, all they can do is suggest experiments to be carried out in the actual world, at which point what happens there trumps any claims that they may have made.
The only thing we really have is comparative studies, across nations and through time. Everything else is just fooling ourselves with our own metaphors.
So when you discard the only thing that we've got as "a few cross-country correlations between inequality and other bad things", what exactly are going going to replace that with, your theories? It must be nice to live in such a simple world.
You argue that, by mathematical definition, a steepening Pareto curve
No, I didn't. The pareto curve is not the reward curve, which is what we were discussing.
Have you considered the possibility that in the actual world the curve doesn't strictly conform to the mathematical one?
I was explicitly assuming your hypothetical was true, and showing it doesn't support your conclusion. That's a conditional claim.
I pointed to an abstraction for illustration, and you made claims based on that abstraction and called it proof of the real world.
No, I called it proof that your argument is bunk. If you want to make an argument based on some complicated theory of socially-based incentives, you need to actually cite such things.
So when you discard the only thing that we've got as "a few cross-country correlations between inequality and other bad things", what exactly are going going to replace that with, your theories?
Tell me; if I can dig up a graph with a better r^2 and a different label on the X axis, will you change your views on inequality? I.e., if I show you this graph, will you say "oops, I'm wrong, inequality is not the issue, I guess $new_x_axis_label is the real problem here?" (Note that I will of course make $new_x_axis_label something socially unacceptable.)
If not, then your argument is simply dishonest. You are criticizing me for being unpersuaded by evidence that you would also find unpersuasive.
Scaling u''(x) doesn't change inequality anyway (as defined by measurements of u(b)/u(a) or the Gini index) so it's a poor stand-in for the kind of convexity people are complaining about.
The incentive is how much your utility increases - between state B and state A, that's u(B)-u(A) = u'(h)(B-A). Take limits and you get to u'(x) for marginal estimates.
Inequality is most definitely NOT defined by ratios of a utility function. The convexity of the OP was in the utility function; he seemed to believe that convexity of reward (and hence of utility, assuming u(reward) is monotonic) would only increase the reward for those at the top.
Maybe you should have made clear in your post, then, that u is utility, not income. If u is utility and v is income, then v'(x)/v(x) ~ u'(x), more or less. Most measures of inequality involve dollar ratios, which seem to correspond to differences in utility, or at least to self-reported happiness.
The most important point in the narrative about inequality is that big inequalities are bad for society.
You don’t need a cast of super-rich, and the rest deep in debt in order to motivate people to perform. But this is where we are going.
The 'no left wing’ narrative if this: ‘we deserve it because we are better’.
It’s not really a very original claim.
All the privileged ‘classes’ in human history say that. In medieval Europe, Japan or anywhere, there was a warrior cast. These people were trained from birth to fight. They were also better feed and, as result, they were bigger. What do you think this people thought about their rights?
That doesn’t mean that personal merit doesn’t exist or that we shouldn’t reward it. It just mean that we have to be very aware of what are the trends and where this kind of thing goes if there is not some kind of corrective force in the system.
The warrior caste probably were better warriors. The only question remaining is "is it just to reward people proportionally to warrior skills?"
Similarly, for the modern day US, "is it just to reward people proportionally to hard work, intelligence and the ability to produce things that people want?"
Well you paint a very fantastical and alluring picture but more realistically in the modern day US we ask: is it just to reward people for developing the social connections necessary to succeed, from birth or happenstance, cultivating the culture, personality, and attitude required to fit into successful career paradigms (generally trained through family and upbringing) and the ability to convince or force people to give you more value than the value of the service which you provide in exchange -- the very definition of profit.
And in fact if you begin asking about justice the immediate answer is of course 'no'; anyone wishing to defend the status quo had better avoid framing the question in terms of justice, and rather try to take the more property-oriented tact common among libertarians: is it morally acceptable to prevent people from choosing exactly what to do with their property for the goals of justice and common good? Obviously yes, but how much?
The premise I'm taking - coming from the original article - is that it's hard work and ability which gets you into the elite rather than social connections. If you want to argue this premise is wrong, that's a separate issue.
Well you're right -- the article is all about hard work and ability /to succeed in undergraduate and graduate admissions contests/ -- I would argue that the social connections are for many the end goal, which you receive after proving you're worthy (and end up at an Ivy, for example) and it is these that actually catapult you into the elite, so hard work is a means to an end.
But this is tangential -- for me the concern is that in the article the writer skims over what kind of hard work and ability is really needed to run this gauntlet of constant judgement and admission from ages 4-25. It is not technical skills or intelligence or even hard work necessarily, but rather an ability and willingness to transform oneself into the kind of person that wins admissions contest. Success doesn't track ability, we've designed a system where we take success as a sign of ability but it actually measures a willingness and ability to conform to admissions standards and do as instructed, and we use this willingness and ability to change oneself as a proxy for actual ability. My argument is that this proxy isn't necessarily a very accurate one.
And I'm glad we agree on the definition of profit. I of course know the economist's definition and agree with it, I just gave what I consider to be a more revealing and honest characterization of it.
>Similarly, for the modern day US, "is it just to reward people proportionally to hard work, intelligence and the ability to produce things that people want?"
You've reversed the causality. Remember, we're asking for a definition of merit that is not isomorphic to "whatever the current economy rewards". We're trying to ask if we can hold the current economy to an external, human standard of performance, rather than just taking it at its own word that "when the numbers go up, it's good" (with the associated problem that even by this standard, "the numbers" have been growing more slowly and crashing more frequently since the rise of inequality began again in the '70s and '80s).
There are barriers to entry. Children taught with care, with consistent discipline, attention, etc. will do better.
When mom and dad are out working and unavailable to lend a hand with homework, children will not do well. When mom and dad work blue collar jobs where they don't use skills that are marketable for the world tomorrow, children are left on their own to do things children do. When mom and dad are angry and bitter because of their misfortunes, children will very possibly be on the receiving end of unwarranted yelling.
Time, stress-free lives, roof on your head -- these are increasingly luxuries that even middle class folks cannot afford. Not having them is the barrier.
First of all, a barrier to entry is a barrier which would prevent a high human capital poor person from entering. The fact that poor people don't have high human capital is a separate issue.
Also, your narrative explaining why poor people have low human capital directly conflicts with the evidence. It's the hard working, highly stressed, wealthy people who's children are raised well.
I have no idea what you are talking about with "roof on your head". If you google statistics on working hours (you probably need to multiply annual hours worked and labor force participation), you'll see that hours worked per capita hasn't changed drastically since the 70's.
I don't think is fair to compare the working hours of the guy that goes to work in his BMW, sit in his office thinking strategy while his secretary serve him coffee and filter any interruption, with the guy that catch the bus to work 10 minimum wage hours.
The fact that poor people don't have high human capital is a separate issue.
It just moves the barrier.
It's the hard working, highly stressed, wealthy people who's children are raised well.... In contrast, the lower income people living a life of leisure are the ones who's children are raised poorly.
To be charitable, I'm betting that "hard working" and "leisure" have special definitions in this context.
Hard working = spends many hours engaged in work for pay.
By "life of leisure", I mean a life in which one does not need to work at all in order to have the necessities of life provided. This is the traditional definition of the phrase, no?
No. I don't think a person who is living at a bare subsistence level would be said to be living a life of leisure.
Also, a person could have a seemingly easy job that pays a lot, or a hard job that pays little. In my view your distinctions are wrung to fit the point you're trying to make.
Basically no one in the US is living at a "bare subsistence level". People with $0 in market income still consume approx $20k/year in the US, which is more than 3x the mean income (after adjusting for cost of living) over here. If $20k is "bare subsistence" then I should be surrounded by at least 500M corpses.
I think it's wrong to believe the claims that Yale, Harvard, etc. have actually become meritocracies.
They absolutely are not. For undergrad, these ivy league schools are much more forgiving of grades from elite high schools.
"Well rounded" or "holistic" admissions also strongly favor upper and upper middle class activities and talents.
Admissions are gamed to such a large degree that it's all a game that is played out year in advance. And the middle class and poor students don't even know it's being played.
>And there are no real barriers to entry; in principle, anyone can do this
Does private schooling provide no benefit?
Private tutoring?
Family donations to elite schools?
Legacy admission?
Further:
Does food security provide no benefit to the ability to learn and retain information?
Does a violent environment offer the equivalent value as a non-violent environment, in terms of being able to focus on schoolwork?
Does a multi-parent child receive no additional educational advantage over a single-parent child?
Does having access to paid resources not offer any benefit?
Does attending better funded public schools not matter?
Does having better paid teachers not matter?
Does having the right cultural and social experiences not matter for forming networking relationships?
Does living amongst primarily successful and well educated people offer no advantage offer growing up amongst poor uneducated people?
You are missing the actual realities of trying to educate a poor child versus a rich child. Money grants you educational advantages in hundreds of ways.
You absolutely /can/ buy a better education. Full stop.
The only thing you've mentioned which is a barrier to entry (to elite schools, e.g. Yale) is legacy admission and donations.
The remainder are merely possible causes for non-elite people having lower merit. They are not barriers for a meritorious non-elite person to attend Yale or join the elite.
> In short, the 1% are the 1% because they are better than the rest, and through hard work and good parenting the same is true of their children.
Yet somehow, the article makes these exact same claims in a manner that will probably avoid anger by left wing sorts. I'm impressed.
Why, no, actually we are impressed.
It takes extraordinary, breathtaking ignorance (or maybe just eternal self-serving bullshit) to overlook centuries of the discrimination and outright violence that the 1% have strangely required and thus perpetuated, when your smug little delusionary claim is that, shucks, it's all merit-based riches.
According to the article, the "aristocracy" preserves itself by educating it's children well and teaching them to succeed on their own merits.
Disclaimer: I may have to plead "guilty as charged" here, if I'm allowed the conceit of placing myself in this aristocracy. Educating our children well has been a defining theme of the culture of my family, going back generations.
With that said, however, a strong factor in educating children to join any "ocracy" is wealth. This can't be overlooked. This aristocracy is not only providing education, but also the environment within which kids can receive that education continuously from birth through young adulthood and possibly beyond. This environment is safe, engaging, surrounded by educated and education-loving adults, and free of violence.
Also, I tend to prefer saying something like "valuable work" rather than "hard work." From my vantage point, hard work is something like carrying a hod, working in a call center, or some other kind of physically or emotionally stressful labor. I hope to never do hard work if I can avoid it.
The article states "The excess educational investment [...] that children born into a typical one percenter household receive is equivalent, economically, to a traditional inheritance of between 5 and 10 million dollars per child": it _does_ cost money to provide this kind of environment. This is why the 1% gives birth to the next 1%, not because they're better than the rest (again, according to the article).
Missed a huge chance to take on law schools for their absurd price structure. They have been increasing tuition at break neck speed, even as lawyer salaries have shrunk since the recession.
/bitter ass lawyer who's working at 1 am to pay dem SOFI bills.
The old-timey prose is more appropriate than the speaker can possibly imagine. He still thinks law is an elite path to success, rather than the soul-degrading billable hour hell it is.
He does get one paragraph /almost/ right. What a dick. Which is it? Is every incentive wrong? Or is that thought a chicanery?
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I wish that I knew. I could tell you—and I would mean it—that when you find an opportunity to trade a little money or status for a lot of freedom, you should take it . . . you should take it every time. But that thought—although honest and heartfelt—is a chicanery, akin to insisting that the rat-race is over. The fact remains that, for each of you individually, all the forces that have brought you to this point remain in play. Every incentive is wrong.
It is very difficult to leave things to the free market that you can't reasonably say no to. The same problem is true for health care. In a free market there is a transaction when both (all) parties agree on a deal, every party is free to say no. In education and healthcare a one-sided "no" means a less secure future or even death respectively. It means rich will continue to have better resources, live longer and be healthier. It means their children, who did no work to obtain their wealth have better chances.
I think a system where the schools/colleges/universities etc are paid with public money are more fair. Such a system provides a reset of opportunities for every generation. I think it will even lead to a better market as I can't imagine that "the top 1%" also provides the top 1% smartest and motivated children.
Of course everyone is free to vote for their own system, I'm just saying I would prefer to live in a country where I'm helped when I'm ill, no questions asked and where I have the same chances as any other kid of my generation.
Can you really blame Walter White for cooking meth when his life is on the line? Can you really blame a kid from a poor neighborhood when he ventures into crime? They are born with less chances than a kid that was born in better circumstances. The current American system judges and gives kids opportunities based on what their parents earn in stead of on their motivation and intelligence. It will be reflected in American markets. It will increase the gap between rich and poor because both are on a self amplifying course.
And don't start about Darwinism, this is past that, this is Darwinism of ideas: memes. And any brain can be "infected" by a meme, good or bad. Memes are not restricted to a set of genes and they are much more at the root of the economy than DNA is. And memes are perpetuated and destroyed by raising kids and giving them quality education.
I like the speech, it nicely points out the downsides of the current system for those on the inside of that system. Seems like the best way to start even though the people outside the system will probably shrug at the elites so called "problems".
What this article ignores is that intelligence is at least 60% inheritable, and elite professionals are likely to merry other elite professionals. So wealth factor is not the only factor in this situation.
There is probably an ongoing process of genetic fitness based stratification of the society. At least to a certain degree.
Change on a massive scale has never been peaceful. We're at the precipice of a new Era much like the Industrial Revolution, the masses of society are about to see a paradigm shift.
