
America’s new aristocracy - e15ctr0n
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21640331-importance-intellectual-capital-grows-privilege-has-become-increasingly
======
nmeofthestate
If we accept the premise of the article - that the population is sifting
itself out by intelligence, then the better a country is at being a
meritocracy, the more likely we are to see this stratification of the
populace. It's funny then that the article comes right out and says the
solution is to improve the prospects of smart disadvantaged kids. This will
just accelerate the process, although it will at least slightly enlarge the
meritocratic elite.

~~~
ceejayoz
The article doesn't even _use_ the word "intelligence".

The premise of the article is that good _education_ is available to some and
not others, and that their children are more likely to also get good
education, thus perpetuating the gap.

This leaves plenty of intelligent and meritorious people with poor educations
and thus poor prospects, which tends to carry over to their kids. The very
_opposite_ of "meritocracy".

~~~
pash
No, the article doesn't use the word _intelligence_ ; it uses the words
_brains_ , _brainpower_ , _intellectual capital_ , _talented_ , and _clever_
instead. That's _The Economist_ for you.

The article more than once calls for improving the prospects of poor, _clever_
children.† If you missed the emphasis on intelligence, I suggest you give the
article another read.

† — In Britain, where the article was published, _clever_ is very nearly
synonymous with _intelligent_ (and more often used), by the way. Americans
tend to use _clever_ to mean something more like _witty_ , _inteventive_ , or
even _cunning_.

~~~
ceejayoz
Except the article is talking about how clever-but-poor kids don't succeed in
the same way. A clever kid from a poor family with only shitty education
available is going to be _far_ more likely to remain poor.

> The link between parental income and a child’s academic success has grown
> stronger, as clever people become richer and splash out on their daughter’s
> Mandarin tutor, and education matters more than it used to, because the
> demand for brainpower has soared.

> The solution is not to discourage rich people from investing in their
> children, but to do a lot more to help clever kids who failed to pick posh
> parents.

> Improving early child care in the poorest American neighbourhoods yields
> returns of ten to one or more; few other government investments pay off so
> handsomely.

------
brd
Coming from a household where only 1 parent had a college degree, growing up
in a less affluent town within a highly affluent county, and being best
friends with a member of a much more well-to-do town/family has given me some
interesting opportunities to see these effects at work.

First and foremost, I don't understand the paragraph decrying successful
people pairing off and breeding, we should be happy that there's some form of
survival of the fittest still impacting the breeding of homo-sapiens.

Having said that, I don't think the success of well-to-do kids is about
smarts; intelligence can truly be found across the board. The well-to-do kids
understand early on the stakes of the game and they have the opportunity to
learn the industries and occupations that afford a better lifestyle. They
mostly gain these insights because they see their parent's careers and the
careers of their parent's friends and have a chance to understand where the
more lucrative opportunities are.

When I spoke with peers from my own town, most had no clue what they wanted to
do and many were seeking out occupations with low ceilings (social work,
teaching, etc). When I spoke to peers from my friend's town, most knew they
wanted to get into sales or engineering or law or medicine. I think this is
ultimately the biggest difference between upper and lower class upbringings
and I'm still waiting for a concise study along these exact parameters.

~~~
Retra
>we should be happy that there's some form of survival of the fittest still
impacting the breeding of homo-sapiens.

This is a terrible line of thought. Evolutionary fitness is not measured by
us, and we have no obligation to support it. This is a massive fallacy. It is
classic rationalization.

Those that survive are fit by evolutionary terms. It doesn't matter who
survives or why you think they should. It is perfectly acceptable for
unsuccessful people to reproduce, since that is the very adaptation that
ensures their survival and guarantees their fitness.

Flies survive by reproducing en mass. Thus they are fit. It doesn't matter if
they are only flies; they fill their niche and evolve just the same.

You cannot control evolution by choosing whether or not to reproduce.
Evolution doesn't have a 'plan' for you to interfere with: it is simply what
happens. It is the outcome.

~~~
brd
It's not a terrible line of thought, simply an unpopular/controversial one.
We've effectively eliminated selective pressures that would otherwise create a
trend towards increased fitness. The most successful members of our society
are increasingly the ones that are having the least children, this is
irrefutable.

I would never imply that its unacceptable for unsuccessful people to
reproduce, I'm simply stating that the trend within the opposite group is a
bit unsettling.

~~~
Retra
You cannot eliminate selective pressures, you just change the niche. Changing
from a circle peg to a square peg doesn't eliminate the requirements for a peg
to fill a hole or die. You just fill different holes. This is not preventing
survival of the fittest from working, it is just changing the meaning of
'fittest.'

Edit: There is an analogous claim you could make to highlight the absurdity of
this:

Say we are talking about a plane crash and you said "We should be glad the
plane crashed: it means that gravity is still affecting humans, as it should!"

Flying planes doesn't invalidate gravity. Gravity is a law of nature, and it
works whether we fly or not. You are still bound by gravity even if you leave
the ground. Survival of the fittest is a law of nature. You are still bound by
it, even if you find it easy to survive. Nature doesn't care if you are
successful by human social standards; that is simply not a consideration the
laws of nature take into account.

------
kailuowang
On average, kids from affluent families have a 20 point IQ advantage over kids
from poor families. That's more than one standard deviation which is 15
points.

Affluent families spend significantly more money in education than poor
families. The elite families send their kids to $40k/year prep school since
they are 2-3 years old.

The more knowledge/information required to be successful in the society, the
more important this difference in education spending and IQ is. The inequality
is inherent.

Instead of focusing on reducing the inequality, we need to convince the rich
people that paying more tax to educate the majority of the population is a
good thing for themselves in the long run. Why not just convince the poor
people to vote that way? You may ask. Well, from my understanding, rich people
knows the best on how to influence poor people.

~~~
cpursley
The top 10% of the wealthiest Americans already pay 68% of the total income
tax. What's needed is better management and allocation of the existing money,
not throwing more money at the problem to be mismanaged. Other countries
manage to education their children well at all sorts of tax levels.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
68% of the income tax is not nearly enough, considering that the rich own the
vast majority of the wealth, and benefit disproportionately from it.

>Other countries manage to education their children well at all sorts of tax
levels.

I think you'll find that - coincidentally - those countries have much higher
tax rates, and the disparity between high and low incomes is smaller than it
is in the US.

Education is always a good thing, and not just for the obvious reasons.

But poor education is as much a symptom of damaged political belief systems as
it is a cause.

Fixing education will only fix the political pathologies up to a point.

~~~
thatswrong0
We spend more per student than other countries.

[http://rossieronline.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/us-
schools-v...](http://rossieronline.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/us-schools-vs-
international3.jpg)

Also:

> 68% of the income tax is not nearly enough, considering that the rich own
> the vast majority of the wealth, and benefit disproportionately from it.

Income is not the same as wealth. The top 10% earn 45% of the income and pay
68% of federal income taxes. How much higher would be "fair" to you?

~~~
carlob
(45/10)/(55/90) == 7.4

That's how much more the average person in the top decile makes compared to
the rest.

(68/10)/(32/90) == 19

That's how much higher the tax the top decile's taxes are. That means that
they are paying 2.6 times as much taxes per dollar.

Is it too high? Too low? I guess it really depends on what the baseline is.
You can't really tell from these numbers. If the bottom 90% pays 10% of their
income in taxes and the top 10% 26% I think it would sound acceptable, if not
a bit low. These numbers don't really tell much of a story.

I guess my point is that as long as the rich keep getting richer and the poor
poorer, the tax delta is not high enough.

------
pervycreeper
>The solution is not to discourage rich people from investing in their
children, but to do a lot more to help clever kids who failed to pick posh
parents.

This is quite right. It is astounding to think about the amount of
intellectual capital that is being squandered by the current structures in
place.

It is in our collective best interest to develop this resource as much as
possible.

Perhaps a market based solution would be to institute an entrepreneurship-
focused boarding school (and after that, maybe a genetic engineering focused
nursery, call it X-Y-Combinator, say).

~~~
mathattack
This is very true. One can argue that much of the difference can't be overcome
- there is no way that a public education can outperform someone whose life
involves Mandarin immersion and test prep tutors.

That said, there are schools (say the Success Academies) who find a way to
perform well, even with poor kids, many of which are english language learners
and special ed. Unfortunately many cities (and the progressives running them)
are doing their best to chase away these reforms rather than embrace them.

------
aaron-lebo
The article is conflating some things. Yes, Jeb Bush will be running. Yes,
Clinton will be running. Both _are_ dynastical-ish issues.

But the discussion about education is off. Jeb is the embodiment of family
dynasties, but let us not forget that there ware Adams, Harrisons, and
Roosevelts. And Clinton is a strange example considering she married Bill, who
came from a poor family and basically pulled himself up by charisma, which
discounts the second-generation education notion presented.

~~~
saalweachter
Yeah, the Clintons are really more of a (dysfunctional) power couple than a
dynasty.

------
Htsthbjig
The fact of University education having soared 17 times the median income,
obviously means there is a bubble that needs to pop.

This bubble is sustained with student loans from the Government. The law of
unintended consequences, you want to help the students, you give them money,
prices go up.

In Spain something similar happened to houses. I don't want loans if they make
houses 4 times more expensive, like European money did. I prefer to pay it
myself, 4 times faster.

I had a very good education in different countries in Europe, and it was
"free" in the economic sense, but it required me to have very good grades.

In some ways I would have preferred to pay a reasonable price for my
education, but giving me the right to choose what I want to study and what not
(just pass the exam without having to ace it for maintaining scholarship).

The economist, being Keynesian and all wants the Government to control
everything top-down, but central planning is not the best system.

BTW: I find the hypothesis of the article ridiculous. It is not intelligence
or education what makes Ivy league students wealthier in the US, but
connections to power and privileges.

In fact, few people on the very top are that intelligent or educated. I have
met some of them. They have other values, like being working, having charisma,
being social...

~~~
fokov
17 * $53,891 = $916,147 There is no way the average or even median university
education costs nearly 1 million dollars. I have no doubt it costs way too
much, but this argument isn't valid.

~~~
foobarqux
17 times the rate of increase, not 17 times the current value. So
new_school_cost/old_school_cost = 17*new_median_income/old_median_income.

~~~
lmm
My brother is getting rich faster than Bill Gates - I mean, he went from 0 in
the bank last year to $200 this year, whereas Gates actually gave some money
away!

Sometimes the absolute value is much more meaningful than the derivative.

------
acconrad
> It is far more useful than wealth, and invulnerable to inheritance tax. It
> is brains.

Not to sound unfair, but isn't this how mate selection works? Why would two
successful, bright people _not_ want to mate and create successful, bright
children? Isn't this what we want for our children, to be bright, capable,
with functional, stable households and marriages brought about by parents who
they themselves value education and a stable marriage/family?

I'm all for equality and the anti-aristocracy sentiment (I was a first
generation college student, and my parents come from humble backgrounds), but
it seems like the whole bend on the genetic predisposition of privileged
children based on what they are born with seems like exactly what the whole
point of evolution of the human species is about - creating a better version
of ourselves.

~~~
ewzimm
Unless you are talking about theistic evolution, it has no point. Making
beings suited to thrive in their environment is the method that led to our
existence, but it's not the point of our existence unless we decide it is.
It's perfectly fine to believe that the point of your existence is procreation
and filling the world with better versions of yourself, but other people might
have other agendas, like creating an egalitarian society or preventing
overpopulation or replacing people with robots. None of them can be
objectively verified as the purpose of humanity.

------
stagger87
The idea of "assortative mating" is covered in depth in
[http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Markets-Inequality-
Remaking-A...](http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Markets-Inequality-Remaking-
American/dp/0199916586) I have no affiliation with the book, I just read it
recently and thought someone might be interested in the topic.

------
zo1
As much as I think the article's author means well. I am quite disturbed by
what some of their suggestions represent.

Notably, the idea of "plucking" children that display intelligence from a
young age and somehow aiding them in their education. Now I may be wrong, but
this seems like we're metaphorically "harvesting" intelligence for the benefit
of society.

The assumption being that society at the moment can't naturally do that, and
we have to use state funding/power/force to make it happen. As with all such
assumptions, it comes with a eery connotation that we have "very smart"
scientists (you know, the ones we don't naturally reward in society") that
have studied this, and they concluded that the best course forward for society
is for them to "pick" a favorable feature in the populace and help it blossom.

Looking forward to see what sort of discussion this mini-rant/tangential-
brain-musing sparks.

------
zackmorris
UPDATE - I removed the Thomas Jefferson quote as it's evidently a fake:

[http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/democracy-will-
ceas...](http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/democracy-will-cease-to-
exist-quotation)

I’m also a big fan of Occam's razor when it comes to politics because people
tell themselves all kinds of imaginative things to justify their beliefs while
a five year old child would see right through them. The simplest answer may be
unpopular even if it’s the right one, and I think that’s why people so often
ignore it.

The truth is that US taxes are about as low as they have ever been for any
developed country, there are more loopholes than ever before, and money has
corrupted politics to the point where the wealthy determine elections now
instead of the voting populace.

The reason this matters is that the poor don’t have capital. They don’t even
have good credit. How can they be expected to pick themselves up by their
bootstraps and get an education when people even on this site (one of the
densest concentrations of intelligence in the world) constantly demand
privatization? Take away the entirety of a people’s wealth and what do they
have left? Their inalienable rights, their community, their heritage, in
essence their government. I think any attack on what we’ve traditionally
thought of as government services (like public education) is only going to
lead us faster to aristocracy.

I have an inkling of what could be done to reduce wealth inequality but the
pragmatic view of these things has become unpopular. I just ask that anyone
who is passionate about something like school vouchers or inheritance taxes
take a step back and look at the big picture. Instant runoff voting, publicly
funded elections, and treating all net income equally under a progressive tax
system are just a handful of newish ideas that would do wonders for leveling
the playing field. My feeling is that people don’t want it leveled, so the
disparity between rich and poor today basically comes down to prejudice.

~~~
jimrandomh
That quote looked suspicious, so I typed it into Google. It's fake.

~~~
zackmorris
Thanks, I stand corrected, that's why I like this site. I saw it on a bumper
sticker so now am bummed out that it wasn't true:

[http://www.teapartygearonline.com/merchandise/bumper_sticker...](http://www.teapartygearonline.com/merchandise/bumper_stickers01.htm)

------
david927
Most other countries went from aristocracy to democracy. I'm sad that America
is maybe the only one to go the other way -- to have been founded on the
principles of The Enlightenment and to slip into plutocracy.

I point my finger of blame at the same thing that gave us the American Dream:
a vast amount of land and the automobile. It meant everyone could own a home
and land of their own, but it also meant that by not living in closer
proximity to each other we forgot that we're family members and we turned into
competitors. It only became important that you get your share (large, please!)
and not making sure that we're all, as a nation, able to live well.

Now we are engaged in a great power war, testing whether this nation, or any
nation so misguided and so derailed, can long endure.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_I 'm sad that America is maybe the only one to go the other way -- to have
been founded on the principles of The Enlightenment and to slip into
plutocracy._

Hardly. This is a very traditional political cycle that was first documented
by the Greek historians and philosophers. Polybius and Plato aptly named it
"Kyklos" (Cycle) and goes from Anarchy -> Democracy -> Aristocracy ->
Monarchy.

This period of cycle is different however as there is no more "West" to go and
start your anarchic society so it should be interesting to see what happens
this time round the cycle.

~~~
api
In Europe it's gone:

Anarchy -> Democracy (Greece, early Rome) -> Aristocracy (late Rome) ->
Monarchy (imperial Rome, middle ages) -> Revolution (brief partial anarchy?)
-> Democracy -> Aristocracy (Eurozone) -> ???

I wonder if it's one of those "wheels of reincarnation," kind of analogous to
the mainframe/PC cycle of centralization vs. decentralization.
Decentralization creates problems that can only be solved by centralization
(tragedy of the commons, paradox of thrift, etc.), but then centralization
creates its own new problems that drive decentralization (corruption,
arbitrary power), rinse and repeat.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Right, well you just described the cycle well with example. Anarchy is usually
short lived as people naturally form groups.

------
erroneousfunk
"It is odd that a country founded on the principle of hostility to inherited
status should be so tolerant of dynasties."

The sixth president of the United States was the son of the second president.
I don't think the founding of our country was quite as utopian as the author
believes.

------
cratermoon
[http://boingboing.net/2012/06/13/meritocracies-become-
oligar...](http://boingboing.net/2012/06/13/meritocracies-become-
oligarchi.html)

------
johnfitzeecs
sounds like a load of eugenics

~~~
clavalle
We prefer 'self-selecting breeding pools that happen to align toward
advantage'.

~~~
zo1
I'm glad I'm not the only one that picked up the creepy undertone of what the
article is proposing/representing.

------
putzdown
I find this article rather bizarre. The opening paragraph sounds a note that
the rest of the article fails to pick up. It seems to me newsworthy that so
many of the presumed candidates for 2016 are attached to past presidents, and
"aristocracy" in that sense is definitely worrying and worth public
discussion. But that's not the subject of the article.

The subject of the article is the privilege ("aristocracy" even) of
intelligence. The thesis is that intelligent parents beget intelligent
children, and since intelligence tends to beget success and wealth,
intelligence represents a sort of inheritable good, a "fortune," in effect,
handed down through family lines. Since all such inherited benefits undermine
equality (the claim goes), they are a societal evil and should be combatted.
The article suggests that the best way to combat them is to promote the less-
intelligent or the intelligent-without-parentage. This is soft-gloving the
issue; if inherited intelligence really is a societal evil, surely holding
down those who are intelligent would also be a valid strategy.

This is a wonky argument at best. A few of the holes:

In what way is this situation new? If the inheritance of intelligence gives a
unfair advantage to the heirs, when in all of human history was this ever not
a source of inequality?

Surely inequality (in this abstract sense) is not such a universal,
unmitigated evil that it must be fought everywhere it appears. People are in
fact different; some people have advantages; some of these advantages are
inherited. Where's the evil, the danger, in that? "Equality" in the sense that
democracies embrace and fight for has never been taken as encompassing
personal traits. If I'm beautiful and my parents are beautiful, should I hide
my face in shame in a democratic nation? If I'm a great pole vaulter and so
was my mother, should I hide my skill or contribute extra funds to support the
training of weaker pole vaulters? The article misunderstands the notion of
equality and, consequently, misidentifies the "danger" or "unfairness" arising
from differences in people's abilities.

This is no innocent error. If we truly believed, as a society, that
smart/beautiful/talented/gifted people posed a danger to society, represented
a form of inequality, and formed an "aristocracy," we would be motivated to
perpetrate the grossest sort of manipulations (at best) and atrocities (at
worst) to equalize them with us ordinary folk. The result would be horrific,
evil, and destructive to the utmost, not only for those unfortunates who were
subjected to "equalization" but also for society itself.

Attack the privileged, if you must, when their possessions or powers pose a
threat to the wellbeing of members of society in general. Do not attack those
who simply have great abilities, even if their parents did too, or you'll
achieve nothing but spite against your own face.

------
happyscrappy
Meanwhile Europe still has an aristocracy but we will ignore that and fret
about the unlikely chance that America will develop one.

~~~
talideon
Last time I looked, Europe had more republics than monarchies...

~~~
dnautics
and in france almost all of the high level bureaucrats and politicians come
from the same school (ecole sciences po)

~~~
EliRivers
Which appears to have a remarkably wide intake, striving not to be simply a
place that rich French aristocrats send their children.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/world/europe/05iht-
educLed...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/world/europe/05iht-
educLede05.html?pagewanted=all)

Bravo.

~~~
dnautics
The diversity initiative makes up 10% of the class? That's laughably low,
compared to say UC Berkeley, or even the ivies in the US.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
They might also want to consider an education system that prioritises _good
teaching_ and not teachers faking impossible exam scores. Exam scores are not
what makes a teacher.

~~~
gaius
The article mentions the problems with teachers in the second half.

 _Many schools are in the grip of one of the most anti-meritocratic forces in
America: the teachers’ unions, which resist any hint that good teaching should
be rewarded or bad teachers fired._

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Yes, this was a reaction to that. My objection is to the idea of "good
teaching", as that often seems to be defined as "high standardised test
scores".

------
dnautics
Is intellectual capital really that important? You can have a college degree
studying an esoteric subject and be working a minimum wage job at a starbucks.
Hell, you can do a postdoc in biochemistry, quit, start working for lyft, and
get a pay raise. Until recently, semi-skilled oil rig workers in north dakota
could comfortably make 80-100k.

------
lotsofmangos
Surely this is conflating the professionals with the power dynasties. While
marrying for intelligence may be common among professionals, marrying for
status is still more common among the very rich, where any jobs are hobbies
and the idea of actually relying on an income from stuff you do, is a sign of
not being the right sort. Bright people marrying each other and having genius
children does not remotely explain the Bush dynasty.

~~~
Jugurtha
I think the author fired this to capture the attention of the reader early on,
so that later he could expose the problem.

At first, it seemed as if the author almost conveys the thought that educated
people should feel guilty from breeding with other educated people.

But thinking about it, all he seems to want is to break the implication:
Bright kid ==> came from educated family.

To tear down causality, so that even kids who were born in ghettos could do
something with their lives.

However, pondering on my own family:

My mother didn't continue college. My father studied in a technical high-
school, but didn't go to college due to the fact our country was invaded by
France and he had to provide for his mother and brothers and sisters, working
with his father. He didn't go to college so that they get to.

Even though they didn't go to college, and although they were under great
financial stress, there was one thing you couldn't mess with at home: Reading.
They were ferocious readers. I was raised in a home with the classics (Balzac,
Dumas, Hugo), books about plants, History, philosophy, geography, manuals for
everything (from sewing machines, to guns and radio transmission). They raised
9 kids and we all went through a ton of stuff. We call the bathroom "The
National Library" for a reason.

I wasn't allowed to go out until I've written many pages (to improve hand-
writing, way before I was of age to be schooled. When I was 10, first year we
started French at school (by that time, I had been exposed to the language for
10 years already), my teacher accused me of not being the one who wrote the
text she asked us to and I had to write in front of her to believe. It was a
"grown-up" writing). I've been accused so many times of cheating because I did
something "I wasn't supposed to be able to do or knew something I wasn't
supposed to know".

They schooled my brothers and sisters, who then schooled me.

My first three languages, I learned at home, my fourth when I started playing
with kids outside. And then English, etc. My childhood was reading, reading,
and reading. I had to summarize things like stories, and explain them. I've
been asked questions on them. Engineering magazines, newspapers, you name it.

I assumed all the kids had to do this.

We became Software/Civil/Electronics Engineers, Architects, Maths and
Chem/Physics grads and Designers.

So the question is: Knowing that they didn't go to college, and the fact my
father was a political prisoner for years, and my mother had her parents
tortured and murdered by French military when she was 9 or so...

How did they manage not to fall into the trap of perpetuating the cycle, and
blaming their life conditions. After all, failing our education would've been
extremely easy to justify with what they went through.

The answer is, in one word: Sacrifice. They sacrificed a lot of things and
were not selfish, and never complained or neglected our education by finding
an excuse in self-pity on why it was okay to fail us. _Then_ my brothers and
sisters were not selfish by transmitting and putting a _lot_ of effort in my
education, more than they received. And we're putting that effort with my
nieces and nephews.

Would we stop putting that much effort in my nieces and nephews if public
education was of quality? Definitely not. It's not the same motivation a
brother or sister, an uncle, or a parent, has toward a child than a teacher
has.

------
cafard
If the Ronald Reagan had happened to choose Donald Rumsfeld or any of the
other plausible candidates as his running mate in 1980, would we be taking
about George W. or Jeb Bush at all? And if the Republican Party had thought
the 2012 election winnable, would we be talking about Mitt Romney?

