111–120 of 225 posts
These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…
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Do you have any sources on what percentage of wealthy that inherit their wealth? From what I've gathered it's quite small and doesn't necessarily last more than a few generations.
I don't have an answer off the top of my head, but I did some searching for you. A short article from inequality.org [1] suggests that most of the richest people in the world (Forbes 400) were born with significant financial advantages, if they weren't already wealthy. Since there are many more rich people than the Forbes 400, that doesn't seem too representative of the usual rich person. It's hard to find anything c…
I wouldn’t call 22% of the richest 400 people in the world having inherited more than $1M to be evidence inheritance dominates the causes of inequity.
I mean, another way to put it is “80% of the richest people in the world DID NOT inherit their wealth.”
[1] https://ips-dc.org/the_self-made_hallucination_of_americas_r...
Please note that this study is in the context of extreme poverty in populations such as rural villages in Bangladesh. It’s an interesting study and worth reading if you’re interested in what it takes to lift these populations out of poverty. The authors propose that their extreme poverty is a meta-stable state that prevents them from accessing wealth-building opportunities. The authors show that time-limited wealth t…
Hans Rosling (RIP) did a great job of defining poverty and visualizing the changing nature of poverty. His area of focus was on child mortality - so it tended to focus on the mothers since they have the greatest impact on this statistic. Later he focused on other areas. Sanitation, water, transportation etc.
https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street/?countries=bd
At the Bangladesh level of poverty, a productive asset is a goat that produces milk. The Heifer Project is doing useful work in giving low income families productive assets. https://www.heifer.org/
Finally there is the whole world of micro loans. I have not looked into this as much.
In the US: "graduate from high school; get a full-time job; don’t have a child before age 21 and get married before childbearing", this gives you %75 chance of being middle class, about %89 chance of not being poor. This isn't good enough, but seems possible! https://www.vox.com/2015/7/24/9027195/haskins-sawhill-norms-...
> this gives you %75 chance of being middle class, about %90 chance of not being poor It doesn't. Those numbers are descriptive, not prescriptive. You're basically giving the advice to be more middle-class in order to be more middle-class.
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Unequal distribution of rewards (i.e. according to merit) is fine and desirable (as a motivating force). The problem's roots are when the distribution of rewards becomes hereditary , that the children of the wealthy have near-guaranteed access to the best educational and social institutions, have near-guaranteed access to startup capital (i.e. from their parents), are usually provided with necessities (food, housing,…
Practically the only reason I accumulate any resources or am productive at all is for the benefit of my child. I wouldn't think twice about committing violence against anyone who tried to stop me.
We need to show people that life long learning can be fun and we have to make it affordable.
Even in Germany, were studying is essentially free, poor people have to stay in bad jobs because they couldn't afford to pay their rent when getting a degree.
These conclusions apply to the third world, not the rest of us. Here in Europe for example, anyone can study and become an entrepreneur (I did it, with pretty much 0 wealth in the family).
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Unequal distribution of rewards (i.e. according to merit) is fine and desirable (as a motivating force). The problem's roots are when the distribution of rewards becomes hereditary , that the children of the wealthy have near-guaranteed access to the best educational and social institutions, have near-guaranteed access to startup capital (i.e. from their parents), are usually provided with necessities (food, housing,…
Which is culturally solvable, but would require require people to give up their children to be raised by the state and never be allowed to know who they are. That sounds horrible, but I submit that said horror is largely driven largely by a culture of possession and selfishness, i.e. people want to raise their own children because they want to shape who they are and ensure their genes have good survival odds. Assured…
In most first world countries, there is basic free education and children can study for a job with enough pay to provide for a decent life style. That's not to say that there're no problems. There are. Often accomodating immigrants from poor countries. Also because declining population and pensions and all that.
But do you want to go full socialist because only rich family children get to the most expensive colleges? O_o
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Practically the only reason I accumulate any resources or am productive at all is for the benefit of my child. I wouldn't think twice about committing violence against anyone who tried to stop me.
That's kind of funny because communist revolutions start more or less from the same feeling: we work long hours and have nothing and there is not hope for my children.
If you have capitalism, you end up with communist revolution, if you have communism, you end up with capitalist system.
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“ Above all we need to focus on delivering opportunity via improved circumstances and empowerment, irrespective of merit or success: that is the only path to actual equality.” Please consider that you are advocating for communism. I hope you will consider reviewing the histories of China and the USSR, et al. after World War 2. The critique and solution you offer do not lead to “actual equality.”
That’s a ridiculous equivalency. You can provide high quality education to all without USSR style communism. In fact I’d argue the long term success of a capitalist system relies on it.