
The 'glass floor' keeps the children of the rich at the top - elorant
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/the-glass-floor-is-keeping-americas-richest-idiots-at-the-top_n_5d9fb1c9e4b06ddfc516e076?ri18n=true&guccounter=1
======
whack
A lot of the comments here seem obsessively focused on Zach Dell. I can
understand why, the author is (perhaps unfairly) hard on him. But the rest of
the article seems to be ignored completely, and that's where the real meat of
the article lies.

We live in a society where more and more institutions, both public and
private, are increasingly becoming dominated by personal connections and
family wealth. We are seeing this in academia, in government, and in
corporations. I missed the memo on when meritocracy became a bad word, but the
children of the wealthy and privileged are taking full advantage of
meritocracy's retreat.

There is no one solution that will fix everything, just like there doesn't
exist any one drug that can cure cancer. But with sustained effort along many
different fronts, we can work towards restoring social mobility and equality
of opportunity for all.

~~~
dahart
> I missed the memo on when meritocracy became a bad word

The New Yorker just had a very interesting article on the idea of Meritocracy
and it covered some of the reasons why there's negativity associated with the
idea. It was enlightening for me.
[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/is-
meritocracy...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/is-meritocracy-
making-everyone-miserable)

The article is in part a review of the book "The Meritocracy Trap: How
America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and
Devours the Elite" (Amazon link:
[https://tinyurl.com/y4qhruhc](https://tinyurl.com/y4qhruhc))

The basic argument is that "merit" is a word that pretends to be about innate
ability and grit, where in reality it's a deep encoding of privilege.

EDIT: OH and I forgot the most relevant tidbit... this article says that
meritocracy was a bad word right from the start: "The term “meritocracy” was
invented in the nineteen-fifties with a satirical intent that has now mostly
been lost. “Merit” was originally defined as “I.Q. plus effort,” but it has
evolved to stand for a somewhat ineffable combination of cognitive abilities,
extracurricular talents, and socially valuable personal qualities, like
leadership and civic-mindedness. Attributes extraneous to merit, such as
gender, skin color, physical ableness, and family income, are not supposed to
constrain the choice of educational pathways."

~~~
snagglegaggle
But if you throw out meritocracy because an advantageous position is partially
inherited, what do you replace it with?

~~~
arcticbull
Well, an estate tax helps level the playing field over time. You earn money in
your life, you get to spend it in your life. You die, and your children get
some, but will have to earn a lavish lifestyle based on their merits.
Exponential decay of wealth from generation to generation will resolve the
advantaged starting position in time, and the proceeds obtained can be used to
raise the remaining folks up to a level of relative competitiveness.

This satisfies the idea that outsized reward should be available to those who
create outsize value, but also ensures that this doesn't pass on to the idiot
children.

~~~
khawkins
I think spending money on your children shouldn't be culled. There's a good
amount of benefit to society in entrepreneurs investing fiscally in their
families. Sure, it might not be fair from a cosmic level, but creating new
businesses and expanding the private sector is better than feeding the bloated
government bureaucracies.

This is especially true because the social bonds and exchange of values and
information that happen between someone who is successful and their family is
more likely to be successful than the average person. In other words, while it
might seem like nepotism from an outward perspective, it could be merit in
actuality.

Instead, I'd support very high luxury taxes. Tax heavily lavish private jets,
yachts, and mansions. These are the types of goods that will rapidly drain the
funds of a rich trust fund kid who offers little to society. Don't take their
startup investment.

~~~
mikepurvis
"... better than feeding the bloated government bureaucracies."

I think this is probably the core of most of these disagreements. If you
approach taxation with the assumption that it's mostly just money going to
waste, then yeah, you're not going to be very supportive of taxation,
especially high tax rates for high income, high net-worth people.

But even if you come at it from that point of view, it has to be acknowledged
that there are certain kinds of services which are almost impossible to
deliver other than via the government. The private sector will not give you
healthcare for all, or any meaningful mass transit (much less HSR), or
properly maintained roads and bridges, or a military, or any of a thousand
other things that your multiple levels of government spend money on. Yes there
is some waste due to corruption or bad decisions, but for most people that is
an accepted cost to getting the services that can't be had any other way.

~~~
tomp
But most taxation _does_ go to waste... if we define "waste" as "whatever
elected officials fancy".

It's fairly easy to devise a system where taxation is _fair_ (or at least
_more_ fair), e.g. by having "pots" \- e.g. tax sugar drinks, but that tax
revenue goes into the _healthcare pot_ and can be used _only_ for that
purpose. If the ostensible reason for taxing rich people is "more equality",
then that money should go into the "helping poor people" pot and be used
_only_ for that purpose (scholarships, financial aid / basic income, etc.).

Obviously, there's a reason politicians don't want to do that... because that
would mean they no longer have control over money and can't spend/waste it as
they want.

~~~
mikepurvis
I don't really agree. There's a lot of value in having general revenue that
can be directed toward the needs and priorities of the day— making these
decisions is what our elected officials are there for. Especially when you
consider the kinds of broad benefits that certain policies can have— for
example, consider the billions needed for something like a new rapid transit
line. Where should that come from, given that it offers mobility to people
without cars, stimulates construction and job growth along the line, etc? It
has a lot of broad-reaching benefits and knock-on effects that are hard to
even completely quantify (think stuff like public health impacts due to air
quality improvement and people making short walks to the station a part of
their daily trips).

The other issue with the pots system is that it can give people a false sense
of entitlement about things which benefit them. For example, consider the
commonly-held belief that gas taxes pay for all road and highway
infrastructure, and that roads and bridges wouldn't be falling apart if the
government would stop "raiding" the gas tax pot to pay for other things. This
is trivially googleable as untrue, but the pervasiveness of this belief blinds
motorists to the reality of how much their preferred mode of transport is
subsidized.

So people in this mindset approach a discussion about something like
subsidized train fare and it's hard for them understand why it's a good deal
for society.

~~~
tomp
Sorry for miscommunication. I completely agree that there should be a
"general" pot and that a lot of taxes are spent and used in at least nominally
(if not efficiently) good manner (one big exemption IMO is war-related
spending).

I'm mainly saying that it would be easier for people to accept _new_ taxes if
that was the implmementation (and specifically taxes like wealth tax that are
ostensibly "to decrease inequality" and not "because we hate the rich").

~~~
mikepurvis
Oh I see. Yeah, certainly there's merit in that, but it can be a challenge
communicating it effectively. For example, Canada now has a nominal carbon tax
that's revenue neutral— all the revenues go into an upfront rebate that's
doled out on a per-head basis with a slightly greater amount if you're rural
vs urban. All this seems perfectly reasonable and is aligned with what
economists recommend as far as ensuring that the system isn't subject to
partisan criticisms or whatever else.

But if you actually look at the rhetoric around it, the right wing party
that's in opposition slams it as being a "cash grab" and a "tax on everything"
that makes life more unaffordable for everyday Canadians. Literally one of the
main planks of their platform this election is scrapping a revenue-neutral tax
in order to help Canadian families "get ahead".

So was there any value in going to the trouble of doing the rebate? AFAICT
claiming the tax was revenue neutral mostly just opened up the gov't to a
ridiculous semantic argument about whether it was _truly_ revenue neutral
given that sales tax was being applied after the carbon tax. Maybe it would
have been easier to just impose the tax and then pair it with an income tax
cut or some kind of investment in existing social safety net programmes?

------
spking
> In 2016, researchers sent hundreds of résumés to high-end law firms. They
> were identical in degrees and grade-point averages, but researchers tweaked
> the extracurricular activities to make some candidates seem rich (sailing,
> classical music) and others seem poor (track and field, country music). At
> the end of the study, upper-class men had been invited to 12 times more
> interviews than lower-class men.

I think that says a lot more about "high-end law firms" than it does about
American society at large.

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
I would rather hire a person who likes classical music than the one who likes
country/rap/bieber. From my experience, people who prefer classical music are
generally smarter.

~~~
whateveracct
The opposite could easily be said. If you cannot even try to appreciate
country/rap/beiber, then you probably have some mental blocks yourself :)

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
My personal preference is not important when I hire someone to do a job.

All I am interested as an employer is a person's ability to do the job. The
type of job I'm offering requires a person to be intelligent => I'll choose
the one who likes Beethoven more than Bieber.

~~~
tyrust
>My personal preference is not important

>I'll choose the one who likes Beethoven more than Bieber.

But that is your personal preference.

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
For that matter, yes, but it is irrelevant for hiring since I'm not going to
listen to music or discuss it at work. If we go to another aspect of my
_personal_ preferences, I dislike jazz, and rather indifferent to rap, but
jazz beats rap for potential hires.

~~~
tyrust
>it is irrelevant for hiring

>jazz beats rap for potential hires

Are you intentionally contradicting yourself?

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
I'm not contradicting. Read more carefully. My personal tastes in music are
irrelevant when I want the better candidate of the two options. And I will
choose jass fan (all other things being seemingly equal) over hiphop fan
despite I don't like jazz.

------
xhgdvjky
No doubt inequality is an issue, but this seems pretty harsh on Zach Dell. His
ventures failed... most do. So he tried something else and got what sounds
like a pretty reasonable job... 22 year old analyst at a big Corp... not that
crazy. I know a few ex-founders who have gone to companies after their
ventures failed (and they aren't heirs to bns). the tone of the article sounds
like they want to see him go to debtors prison!

also... yes... top schools are pandering to the rich. but how else do they
offer scholarships? American gov't stays out of this (mostly), so it's up to
the schools to make ends meet. the schools want to pay for many families, but
to do so they need donors. I actually think that's better than only letting
rich people attend (and not having scholarships). it's not a final solution,
but in the big picture, it's a step forward.

~~~
CydeWeys
Similarly, I was briefly involved in a failed startup in college. We lost, at
maximum, something like $20k.

I gained a lot of experience doing it and came out of it much _better_ off
skills-wise, increasing my value to future employers. It would be absurd to
count that experience against me; being involved in a startup in university
really should count in your favor. They almost all fail anyway.

But I don't come from obscene wealth so no one's gonna bother coming after me.

------
munificent
I haven't been able to find the source since but I learned in a philosophy
class ages ago that one of the classic philosophers (Plato? Aristotle?) said
that a society can never be perfectly fair and just.

* To be just, parents should be free to provide for their own children.

* To be fair, every person should be given an equal opportunity to succeed.

These are fundamentally in opposition: every extra dollar a parent gives to
their child is an unfair (in the sense that the child only earned by virtue of
"choosing" that parent) benefit.

This was one of those moments that really turned on a lightbulb in my head
when I think about how a society collectively raises each generation. I now
think that a healthy society shouldn't "solve" this problem, they should just
try to find the sweet spot that balances these two opposing forces.

And, interestingly, this is something that really affects me in a material
way. My kids go to a public elementary school. My taxes fund schooling for
_all_ children in the area. The school also does donation drives and other
things that let me opt in to giving money to benefit all children. But I also
can choose to spend money on private classes, tutors, and other extra-
curricular activities that only benefit my own children. So I have a very
direct set of levers where I can choose my own particular moral position on
this continuum.

Personally, my feeling is that we should mostly lean towards justice and equal
opportunity. Most resources spent towards educating children should go in ways
that benefit _all_ kids. Fewer private schools, more public funding. My
argument is that being a child of wealthy parents is already a _tremendous_
ambient benefit. The child has a more comfortable, stable home environment,
and fewer worries around material needs. They are more likely to get quality,
prompt mental and physical healthcare. All of those give them a huge advantage
compared to other kids.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> Fewer private schools, more public funding.

Those who send their children to private schools _also_ pay taxes that pay for
public schools. They just receive no education for their children from it (by
choice). Pay the same in, take fewer resources out - that doesn't seem like a
negative to me.

~~~
munificent
It's more complex than that, though. There's a whole constellation of things
that come when a parent chooses a school for their kid, including the kid
themselves. Parents are still paying taxes for public schools, but they aren't
joining the PTA, donating at the jog-a-thon, sponsoring the sports team,
chaperoning band field trips, networking with other parents, etc.. Wealthy
parents have a lot of resources they bring to bear and when their kid doesn't
go to a public school, the only resource they leave behind is their taxes.

------
tengbretson
It's not obvious to me that downward social mobility and upward social
mobility are the same things. Lamenting the fact that Michael Dell's son "just
hasn't become poor like me yet" sounds like sour grapes. This mindset that in
order for people like me to make it people at the top have to fall only makes
sense if you consider the economy a fixed-sized pie. It's obviously not.

~~~
opencl
What makes the economy obviously not a fixed sized pie? Every dollar that
Michael Dell's son has came out of somebody else's pocket.

~~~
tengbretson
When that money came out of those people's pockets they went home with a
computer that they obviously valued _more_ than the money itself. By their own
judgement they walked out of a store carrying more wealth than they walked in
with. Michael Dell made himself wealthy but he made his customers even more
wealthy.

~~~
iamasoftwaredev
Or they worked for 40 hours assembling computers for minimum wage while the
company made billions and billions off that worker labour.

------
throwaway713
> The app failed almost instantly

Hell, at least he’s trying to do _something_. I can’t imagine many
billionaire’s children trying that much.

~~~
vernie
He could be making stylish shirts to wear out to the discoteca

~~~
knolax
> discoteca

Move over grandpa! They're called clubs now./s

------
imgabe
> And yet, despite helming two failed ventures and having little work
> experience beyond an internship at a financial services company created to
> manage his father’s fortune, things seem to be working out for Zach Dell.
> According to his LinkedIn profile, he is now an analyst for the private
> equity firm Blackstone. He is 22.

I was rewatching Mad Men lately and it reminds of Peter Campbell. Early on,
Peter screws up something badly and Don wants to fire him, but he can't
because the firm owner Sterling explains, Peter comes from a wealthy family
and his family connections bring business to the firm.

Sounds like maybe the same thing? Even if Zach Dell just sat a desk and stared
at a wall all day, he'd probably be invaluable because his father is a
billionaire and he knows other billionaires and he can introduce them to the
principals at the firm.

~~~
notfromhere
In the biz, its called a "relationship hire."

Deutsche got caught hiring the dumb kids of Chinese bureaucrats to win over
business recently, but it happens basically everywhere.

~~~
nradov
Most major financial services companies also make sure to hire a few minor
members of the Saudi royal family for the same reason.

------
zip1234
I would expect nothing less of people than to help their kid succeed in life.
It seems like parents are spending money as expected. Of course, the article
doesn't look at what happens to those kids once the parents are gone or what
happens to the grandchildren.

------
blunte
It's worth remembering that these rich kids don't have a perspective other
than the one they grew up with. Hating on them specifically isn't helpful.

The flower shirt guy is probably really trying, and he probably really
believes that his hard work and passion is driving his success (assuming he's
still doing that thing). But it's hard to ignore the possibility that his
success is just based on connections, financial backing (which means no lean
times, no failure moments, etc.).

------
everdrive
Even on a level playing field, people would occupy a bell-curve. There will
always be have-nots, at least as long as they're being measured relative to
the haves. And to be sure, the have-nots will always be able to claim some
disadvantage, even in a "perfect" meritocracy. Your skill and personality
provide for opportunities, which are the groundwork for future opportunities.
ie, excellent performance in school allows for a scholarship to the best
universities. Excellence at the best universities lines you up for your pick
of the litter to the best jobs. The best jobs are filled with the best people,
and allow for 1) far better networking opportunities, and 2) far more
experience and opportunities for advancement, which in turn provides for even
better jobs.

I'm certainly NOT suggesting that the world is currently fair, or devoid of
favoritism. I just want to note that even in a true meritocracy there will be
a stringent class divide. It's almost unavoidable, unless people with less
skill are afforded the same opportunities as people with more skill.

In this sense, it would be hard for a theoretical "perfect" meritocracy to
survive multiple generations. The most talented people would quickly
accumulate wealth and prestige.

~~~
rtkwe
The issue is you're not really measuring skill at any step just past
performance which is what leads to the feedback loop of privilege begetting
privilege.

------
iamasoftwaredev
> Eight of the nine Supreme Court justices graduated from just two law
> schools.

The latest two went to the same high school.

------
TimTheTinker
This paragraph captures what I think is the most worthwhile substance in the
article:

> “The greater the inequality, the greater the impact on opportunity,” Fishkin
> said. “There’s a self-fulfilling class anxiety among the middle- and upper-
> middle class because they sense that the spaces are scarce now. There are
> fewer secure jobs. And the scarcer they are, the more valuable they are.”

But in my opinion, it's a bit much to call "class anxiety" a self-fulfilling
prophecy for _middle-class_ people, since most of what we're seeing
economically is due to the decisions of those in power -- either government or
corporate (i.e. not the middle class) -- especially around international trade
and outsourcing.

------
exabrial
> And yet, despite helming two failed ventures and having little work
> experience beyond an internship at a financial services company created to
> manage his father’s fortune, things seem to be working out for Zach Dell

I have a really hard time believing someone else's fortune means that I cannot
also be fortunate. I find the premise of articles like this sad. It's riddled
with overtones of jealously, mediocracy, and comparison (which is the thief of
joy).

~~~
csb6
> I have a really hard time believing someone else's fortune means that I
> cannot also be fortunate

I don’t. There is a limited amount of wealth in the economy at any given
moment. There is also a limited amount of well-paying jobs, which can lead to
social mobility, and there is also a limited amount of wealth for investing in
new ventures. Since these things are finite, one person being 20x richer than
you or me means they are sitting on money and taking opportunities that others
cannot. Time and money are not infinite because Earth’s resources are not
infinite.

And yes, Zach Dell alone being wealthy or taking a lucrative job does not
substantively affect everyone’s wealth. He is just one person. But I hope you
can realize that the author is employing a literary device known as an
anecdote or an example to start off their piece in order to illustrate a
larger issue, which is that the wealthy are able to get opportunities and more
wealth just by virtue of what family they were born into. Whether this is a
problem or not is up to you, but I think reducing the article to “overtones of
jealously” and “mediocracy” is misleading, although in an unintentionally
amusing way; the author is actually calling out the blatant “mediocracy” that
is inherent to privilege in our so-called merit-based society. I think this is
a valid issue to write about and discuss.

~~~
exabrial
Bold claim for a person with potable running water, internet access, flushable
toilets and living above the poverty line.

~~~
csb6
That’s a pretty low bar in a world where a handful of people have literally
hundreds (if not more) of times the amount of wealth as you and I, and yet
still a significant portion of Americans live below or near the poverty line.
I contend, not unreasonably, that we can do better than internet access,
drinkable water, and other basic necessities of post-industrial living and
still have plenty of inequality to make rich people feel superior or whatever.
The U.S. economy is tremendously more productive than it was even 20 years
ago, but have wages and prosperity risen proportionately among the lower and
middle classes over that timespan? No. Yet wealthy children are able to
exploit their privilege to get positions that “ladder climbers” could have
gotten.

But yes, let us thank our benevolent masters, who throw pennies from their
high castles at us commoners as we bow and scrape for their favor. Nothing to
see here, folks, poor children get potable water and rich children get seven
figure salaries! What inequality and nepotism do you speak of?

~~~
exabrial
I can only imagine how much more charitable you would be with his level of
wealth, given how charitable you are with the _literal vast expanse_ of your
current.

~~~
csb6
People online need to be more like you. I appreciate your thoughtful response
to my comment, as well as your willingness to discuss this issue in good faith
so far

------
iamasoftwaredev
That's because people like Michael Dell have truly absurd sums of money. 30
billion dollars.

His failson can piss away money all day every day and never even make a dent.

~~~
eadmund
> His _[son]_ can piss away money all day every day and never even make a
> dent.

His son is 22. Life expectancy right now is about 93 I think, so he has 71
years of life left. Ignoring interest, he could spend $1,000,000 a day every
day for the rest of his life.

Yeah, he could spend an awful lot of money. Must be nice!

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Christ, I had to actually sit here for a moment and imagine how I could even
possibly manage to spend $1M a day. I can only think of two things: 1) hiring
people to work on things I know are unprofitable but want done, and 2) giving
it away.

------
dpflan
"One of Reeves’ studies found that 43% of the members of upper-class
households had skills and intelligence that predicted lower incomes."

Wow, that is a large percentage! There are some interesting data points, but
that percentage stands out to me. There must be some sort of evolutionary-
economic angle to this.

~~~
xyzzyz
This is simply regression towards the mean. Same reason why children of two
tall parents, while taller than general population, will on average be shorter
than their parents.

------
RickJWagner
Rich, undisciplined kids go on to be big spenders who need to hire people to
cater to their needs.

What kind of 'answer' could there possibly be? The system works, as it always
has. The huge majority of wealthy families squander it all away in a few
generations. It's a self-correcting problem.

------
mbostleman
I don't see the connection as to how a rich kid not being able to create
market value as an entrepreneur keeps a poor kid from providing value as an
entrepreneur. Is there a fixed number of ideas and the rich kids with poor
insight are using them all up leaving none for the less fortunate?

------
madengr
“Having a college degree is most beneficial to the kids who aren’t that
smart,”

So lets just water things down so the "kids who aren’t that smart" can get a
college degree.

------
invalidOrTaken
Good! Good! At least _someone_ has some security...

------
headmelted
I'm not sure what's controversial here.

This is capitalism.

Get money put away and your whole family will accumulate wealth at (give or
take) 8% per year (and thus stay rich), save for gross incompetence and
catastrophically bad bets.

Short of replacing capitalism itself this will always be the case.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Actually you could just remove the notion of "family" and it would go away
too. If you don't raise your children and never know who they are, you can't
give them any money.

~~~
headmelted
This is objectively true but it broke my brain.

