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It's not a bad article, but it makes the same observations about opportunity we've read about a thousand times before. The article mostly describes the status q
by gizmo 9y ago
It's not a bad article, but it makes the same observations about opportunity we've read about a thousand times before. The article mostly describes the status quo, but doesn't say much about the root causes or about possible solutions. Maybe the full book is better, but I doubt it. The author doesn't strike me as a person with deep insights.
One sentence from the article really sticks out: "The American ideal of a classless society is, to me, a deeply attractive one. It has been disheartening to learn that the class structure of my new homeland is, if anything, more rigid than the one I left behind and especially so at the top."
The author, a highly educated middle aged British guy who works at a think tank, needs years to figure out that the United States isn't the bastion of opportunity it purports to be? Come on! Literally the moment your plane lands at the airport you notice food is prepared by immigrants, and taxi drivers have missing teeth. The inequality is visible everywhere, and it stares you in the face. The author only barely recognizes the contradiction between his wish for equal opportunity for all and his desire to give his children a leg up.
Ultimately he concludes that hoarding opportunity by the top 20% "results in a less competitive economy as well as a less open society". In other words, he's _still_ arguing that the top 20% should be in favor of equal opportunity out of self interest, because it builds a better society for all. This is in direct contradiction with his earlier observations about the zero-sum nature of opportunity. Efforts to redistribute wealth and opportunity from the rich to the rest does not benefit the rich: it's called class conflict for a reason. Maybe in another decade or so the author will figure this out.
- skj 9y ago> Efforts to redistribute wealth and opportunity from the rich to the rest does not benefit the rich Only if you don't consider a benefit to ones descendants.
- aaron-lebo 9y agoHe may (or may not) be contradicting himself, but the argument isn't wrong. By hoarding wealth, the richest prevent their own wealth from growing (out of risk aversion and greed), and they end up either voluntarily transferring wealth or it's taken from them by an angry underclass. You can see why (after the fact), they would've preferred the former. Posted this yesterday but Acemoglu and Robinson's Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy goes into this in depth. http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2006/01/book_review_eco.html http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2006/01/book_rev... Besides, it's really nice to be wealthy, but wealth can't protect the wealthiest from getting murdered by someone lacking mental healthcare or getting radicalized because they have no other option. Thus spreading the wealth does help everyone. Also, you are misrepresenting what he said re Britain and the US. I am British by birth, but I have lived in the United States since 2012 and became a citizen in late 2016. There are lots of reasons I have made America my home, but one of them is the American ideal of opportunity. I always hated the walls created by social class distinctions in the United Kingdom. The American ideal of a classless society is, to me, a deeply attractive one. It has been disheartening to learn that the class structure of my new homeland is, if anything, more rigid than the one I left behind and especially so at the top. The only thing he's saying is that while Britain has a society with obvious class differences, the US has those differences hidden. It's not that it took years for him to figure out cause he's a clueless dummy.
- jacob019 9y agoWhile I would love to live in a more equal society, history shows time and again that government efforts to redistribute wealth mostly destroy it. We should try to devise systems that prevent power from centralizing in the first place.
- aaron-lebo 9y agoWealth has been redistributed via various government means for centuries. Did the income tax help society or destroy it? What would this discussion look like without it? There are ways of gradually doing it that don't involve mass upheaval.
- tnzn 9y agoIs that because the government redistributes the wealth, or because the powerful ones make it so that redistributing the wealth doesn't work ? (ie tax evasion)
- crusso 9y agoYes.
- weberc2 9y agoThe explanation I've heard is that it disincentives people from the hard work which creates wealth. Anyway, I don't think your explanation "the rich undermine wealth redistribution" explains the parent's conclusion that wealth is destroyed (a failure to redistribute wealth doesn't necessarily result in less wealth overall).
- jamescostian 9y ago> efforts to redistribute wealth mostly destroy it Not sure what you mean by this. Isn't the goal here to destroy a lot of wealth? Wealth is a relative term - someone with $1B is not rich because 1B is an inherently big number, they are rich because $1B is orders of magnitudes greater than what most people will make in their lifetimes. Making people all have about the same in the bank other would destroy wealth.
- rhino369 9y agoInequality and lack of opportunity are not the same thing. Leaving aside the question of whether America actually has opportunity, if it did, some would still fail miserably.