The self-made man
slate.com
The self-made man
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Re: The self-made man
#2I'm pretty skeptical of the study on which this essay bases its premise that economic mobility in the U.S. is limited compared to, say, France. The most detailed information I can find online is the executive summary[1], which has to handwave that it found Italy with a strongly negative correlation between parents' and children's economic outcomes! That suggests to me that their methodology is not particularly robust.
I've found similar attempts to establish parent/child economic correlation equally suspicious when, for example, they measure income correlation with percentiles rather than in adjusted dollars (it's much easier to be "mobile" if there's only $10K in income separating the 40th and 60th percentiles!)
[1] http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_as...
Re: The self-made man
#3I'm pretty skeptical of the study on which this essay bases its premise that economic mobility in the U.S. is limited compared to, say, France. The most detailed information I can find online is the executive summary[1], which has to handwave that it found Italy with a strongly negative correlation between parents' and children's economic outcomes! That suggests to me that their methodology is not particularly robust…
That's the whole point of economic mobility, to measure it against income and inequality.
Re: The self-made man
#4I'm pretty skeptical of the study on which this essay bases its premise that economic mobility in the U.S. is limited compared to, say, France. The most detailed information I can find online is the executive summary[1], which has to handwave that it found Italy with a strongly negative correlation between parents' and children's economic outcomes! That suggests to me that their methodology is not particularly robust…
That's the whole point of economic mobility, to measure it against income and inequality.
No, that's not the point. A society with almost no income inequality, where everyone makes almost exactly the same amount, would have nearly perfect "mobility" as measured by the correlation between the percentile of parent and child earnings (a few random dollars would move you a lot!). But it wouldn't be a "mobile" society in the sense we usually mean, where the poor can become rich (and vice versa) because there would be no poor and no rich!
Re: The self-made man
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the whole point of economic mobility, to measure it against income and inequality.
No, that's not the point. A society with almost no income inequality, where everyone makes almost exactly the same amount, would have nearly perfect "mobility" as measured by the correlation between the percentile of parent and child earnings (a few random dollars would move you a lot!). But it wouldn't be a "mobile" society in the sense we usually mean, where the poor can become rich (and vice versa) because there w…
It depends on what you're trying to measure by "economic mobility" though. I can think of valid reasons to want to know the percentile change between a person and their parents, irrespective of the absolute value difference, and reasons to be interested in the different-but-related measure of absolute change in income/quality of life.
It's generally better to start with the question "what do I want to know?" and then looking for a suitable statistical framework that will answer that question, rather than starting with a ready-made statistical analysis and then trying to use it to answer arbitrary questions.
Re: The self-made man
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the whole point of economic mobility, to measure it against income and inequality.
No, that's not the point. A society with almost no income inequality, where everyone makes almost exactly the same amount, would have nearly perfect "mobility" as measured by the correlation between the percentile of parent and child earnings (a few random dollars would move you a lot!). But it wouldn't be a "mobile" society in the sense we usually mean, where the poor can become rich (and vice versa) because there w…
Mobility is about moving between classes of society. So, the society you just described would be rightfully described as having high social mobility. What it probably does not have is high average wealth.
Re: The self-made man
#7Humans have a problem with complexity and compound causality in general; any person who succeeds does so by some combination of both individual grit, and support from society and loved ones (even if indirectly), regardless of what the proportions happen to be (if one could even measure such a thing). Thinking that success must derive exclusively from either society or the individual is sheer absurdity, driven by a need to impose an idealized narrative upon messy reality.
Re: The self-made man
#8Humans have a problem with complexity and compound causality in general; any person who succeeds does so by some combination of both individual grit, and support from society and loved ones (even if indirectly), regardless of what the proportions happen to be (if one could even measure such a thing). Thinking that success must derive exclusively from either society or the individual is sheer absurdity, driven by a ne…
Yet there are some people that work 60 hours per week and some that choose to not work at all. The people in the first camp are typically more successful than people in the second camp. Articles like the OP discount their efforts and accomplishments completely.
Re: The self-made man
#9Humans have a problem with complexity and compound causality in general; any person who succeeds does so by some combination of both individual grit, and support from society and loved ones (even if indirectly), regardless of what the proportions happen to be (if one could even measure such a thing). Thinking that success must derive exclusively from either society or the individual is sheer absurdity, driven by a ne…
Yet there are some people that work 60 hours per week and some that choose to not work at all. The people in the first camp are typically more successful than people in the second camp. Articles like the OP discount their efforts and accomplishments completely.
I think part of the reason this conversation is valuable, though, is that the inverse omission is far more dominant in the cultural conversation right now. It's certainly mostly true that hard work plays an important part in fantastic success. But it's equally true that even in those cases, the majority enjoyed advantages that are often invisible even to them.
So to be sure, the opposite extreme is just as ridiculous as suggesting that every person exists in a bubble where their effort correlates exactly with outcome. But when the awareness of systemic advantage is absent (as it certainly is), I see staking out a far extreme opinion like this as a challenge to find a more reasonable center.
Re: The self-made man
#10Humans have a problem with complexity and compound causality in general; any person who succeeds does so by some combination of both individual grit, and support from society and loved ones (even if indirectly), regardless of what the proportions happen to be (if one could even measure such a thing). Thinking that success must derive exclusively from either society or the individual is sheer absurdity, driven by a ne…
any person who succeeds does so by some combination of both individual grit, and support from society and loved ones
And genetics, and the general culture, and luck, which is just a word we use for many factors we can't even name yet mixed with true randomness. And then there's a fair bit of interplay between all the factors.
Why do some people work 60 hours a week when others barely crack 10? That "grit" doesn't come from nowhere.
And surely there are more fundamental reasons for why some societies at some times are more supportive, or more successful, or richer, or saner, than others.