Low upward mobility shouldn't be considered a bad thing -- in fact, it's a sign of a functioning meritocracy along with the fact that merit is at least partially inheirited.
Rich people tend to be smart, smart people tend to have smart children, smart children tend to grow up to be rich, and so rich people wind up having rich children. Rich people would have rich children even in a society where all children were taken away from their parents at birth and raised communally.
Add to this the fact that children also pick up financial literacy and values (good or bad) from their parents, and there's your low upward mobility right there. I doubt if the other effects (i.e. rich children inheirit wealth and can often get into better schools) are nearly as important as the genetics of it.
I think you need to separate your factual statements from your value judgments.
On a factual level, you're right (and don't deserve all those downvotes). Every study I've seen suggests a strong correlation between genetics and intelligence, between intelligence and income, and between income and wealth. When you multiply them out, the correlation becomes somewhat less, but it still seems like a fair statement to say that genetics is correlated with wealth.
That doesn't imply that this correlation indicates a functioning meritocracy, because to the extent that intelligence is genetic, intelligence is not merit. Merit usually implies that something admirable that someone chose to do, and if someone was born intelligent, how is that merit? It's like making a value judgment on any other inborn trait - say, that blondes are better than brunettes, or fair-skinned people are better than dark-skinned ones.
The part of intelligence that people usually associate with "merit" is the part that's not inborn, the part that people have to work for. Intelligence can lead to a functioning meritocracy despite its genetic component, not because of it.
I think there are multiple definitions of "merit" at work here. The form of merit which is chosen and admirable is not necessarily the same as the "merit" in "meritocracy".
I agree that merely being born with an attribute is not really "merit", but on the other hand I think a "meritocracy" is about rewarding ability, not "merit", and perhaps needs a better name.
Wikipedia defines it as:
Meritocracy is a system of government or other organization wherein appointments are made and responsibilities assigned to individuals based upon demonstrated intelligence and ability (merit).
which is different again to what I meant... the form of "meritocracy" I mentioned would exist even in the absence of society. If the world consisted of a bunch of individuals on isolated and identical islands who never interacted then it would be a perfect "meritocracy" in the sense I meant it, because each would acquire wealth and quality of life depending only upon his own ability to hunt, gather, build shelter, et cetera.
You can't argue against something just by calling it an unfashionable name.
I've heard it said that nobody can agree on what "social Darwinism" means but that everybody is against it. I'm trying to remove the stigma to promote a more sober discussion of ideas that often suffer from this label.
I don't see what's hard to define about social Darwinism, especially since you did a pretty good job expounding it in the parent post.
The reason everybody is against it (except the children of rich people, generally) is that it's not much more than post-facto rationalization for the nineteenth century. I know I didn't come of rich stock, and yet I think I'm pretty smart. I can think of a couple of examples of the stupid rich, too. Lots of them, lately.
I'll grant that richer families have better educational opportunities and you could perhaps make an argument based on cultural transmission of "beneficial" behavior - but the primary trait that causes wealth is ruthlessness, not intelligence, and it's no way to run a railroad.
Rich people tend to be smart, smart people tend to have smart children, smart children tend to grow up to be rich, and so rich people wind up having rich children. Rich people would have rich children even in a society where all children were taken away from their parents at birth and raised communally.
Add to this the fact that children also pick up financial literacy and values (good or bad) from their parents, and there's your low upward mobility right there. I doubt if the other effects (i.e. rich children inheirit wealth and can often get into better schools) are nearly as important as the genetics of it.
this is so full of misconceptions that I won't even start.
How you got a 13 karma for being all "ohh don't do that, please do argue your point" when your original point is so similar 19th century racism "research" is beyond me; it speaks to the hugely ignorant view of history, politics or economics that is present in some HN commenters
Oh and if you're gonna leave an anonymous snarky comment, feel free to; your view has zero value to me (as does your downvote)
But you were wrong about basically everything in this thread.
You seem to have some weird theory that wealth is somehow correlated with genetics - a theory that you cannot support with any evidence, but continue to reintroduce.
And then you seem to make a conclusion that it's all quite ok and the research in question is totally pointless. I mean, what do all those former middle-class and newly-poor are whining about? There's nothing we can do if they were born with genetic defect, right?
Many of the traits that hugh3 refers to may well be a matter of culture and values. These are heritable traits, in that children tend to acquire them from their parents. But they have nothing to do with DNA.
Thus, there's very little in this claim condemning a person's offspring, for all of eternity, to menial drudgery, simply due to an accident of genetics. The children or grandchildren can learn a different way of life, and improve their lot -- and pass that on to their own children.
It's been observed that if you (1) finish high school; (2) get a job; and (3) get married before having kids, the chances that you'll wind up in poverty is virtually nil. This says nothing about ethnic groups, the finances of your parents, etc. It's just a matter of displaying the values that have proven to lead to success.
You seem to have some weird theory that wealth is somehow correlated with genetics - a theory that you cannot support with any evidence, but continue to reintroduce.
That's a weird theory? I think it follows quite naturally from:
1. Wealth is correlated with intelligence, and
2. Intelligence is at least partly inherited.
These both seem like they would be fairly obvious and noncontroversial, and I'm sure could be backed up with a few minutes googling. Which one would you like to take issue with?
PS. It's possible your misconception comes from thinking that "wealth is correlated with intelligence" allows us to make statements about specific cases -- like that rich person A is necessarily more intelligent than poor person B, or that the lower average wealth of group C than group D implies that group C is of lower average intelligence. Of course it means nothing of the sort.
The results confirm other researchers' findings that IQ test scores and income are related. Depending on the method of analysis used and specific factors held constant, each point increase in IQ test scores is associated with $202 to $616 more income per year. This means the average income difference between a person with an IQ score in the normal range (100) and someone in the top 2% of society (130) is currently between $6000 and $18,500 per year. While income and IQ test scores are related, results do not suggest a link between IQ scores and wealth. Regression results range from a negative to a small positive relationship depending on the specific analysis done. Moreover, since most of the statistical results are not distinguishable from zero, this suggests IQ test scores and net worth are not connected.
What exactly does cause the concentration of wealth is an interesting question, but it appears to be more complex than simply making more income, and unlike income doesn't appear to be as strongly associated with intelligence (if associated at all).
yeah, but the less rich of the intelligent have better, safer and more widely respected jobs (I have met door to door salesmen that make more than members of parliament). They had opportunities to chose other more lucrative careers, but they didn't.
While those with above-average IQs were three times more likely to have a high income as those with below-average IQs, they were only 1.2 times more likely to have a high net worth. "Simply put, there are few individuals with below-average IQ scores who have high income, but there are relatively large numbers (of those with below-average IQs) who are wealthy," he wrote.
"I was expecting that smarter people would have greater wealth," Zagorsky said. "And you kind of expect people with higher IQ to make fewer mistakes. . . . I thought, 'Wow, I must have made a mistake.' "
As people here are fond of pointing out: correlation does not imply causation. One can easily make a plausible case that the reason people from wealthy backgrounds score higher on measures of intelligence is because, to the extent intelligence really is inherited, attempts to quantify it are still sensitive to things like quality of education and intellectual stimulation throughout life, both of which strongly correlate with wealth.
Rich people tend to be smart, smart people tend to have smart children, smart children tend to grow up to be rich, and so rich people wind up having rich children. Rich people would have rich children even in a society where all children were taken away from their parents at birth and raised communally.
Add to this the fact that children also pick up financial literacy and values (good or bad) from their parents, and there's your low upward mobility right there. I doubt if the other effects (i.e. rich children inheirit wealth and can often get into better schools) are nearly as important as the genetics of it.