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>Some people seem to imply that this reveals a flaw in our society, but I am having trouble seeing better alternatives. Can someone please help me understand?

>Some people seem to imply that this reveals a flaw in our society, but I am having trouble seeing better alternatives. Can someone please help me understand? A society which doesn't massively privilege the children of the wealthy? What are you having trouble with? We just reduce the influence of class and wealth.

itsjustme2 9y ago
So instead of a multi-generational meritocracy, you want everyone in the same generation to have the same resources starting out? How do we determine the best resources for each generation? How do we distribute the wealth? How do we keep parents motivated to work when their main motivation is to provide a better life for their children?
- danharaj 9y ago
  Multi-generational meritocracy sounds antithetical to post-enlightenment thinking. It sounds like someone sneezed while saying "aristocracy".
  - itsjustme2 9y ago
    Calling multi-generational meritocracy the same as aristocracy is a misunderstanding of what these two words mean. Yes, societies are messy, and what happens in one societal structure can sometimes happen in another, but that does not mean that the underlying rules defining the two are equivalent.
- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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nugget 9y ago
> We just reduce the influence of class and wealth. How? Since the dawn of time, people have been split into rich and poor. It seems to be the most persistent bifurcation in the history of human civilization. Even in a society like the USSR, where there was little to no private property ownership, material wealth was controlled by a small cohort of politically-connected individuals who passed their influence to their children. The best antidote to wealth inequality has been criminality and chaos - plagues, world wars - which seem to be on the decline. It's easy to target a few thousand billionaires and apply some estate tax to recapture fortunes upon death. But the real reservoir of generational inequality - as you imply it to be - seems more likely to be the hundreds of thousands of upper class families who pass on intensive amounts of educational, cultural, social, and financial benefits to their kids in ways that are harder to track and harder to crack down on, and which no amount of Government programs for the poor are likely to replicate. With that in mind, what practical steps can you take to meaningfully reduce the influence of class and wealth?
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Separate society into 'spheres.' So for example I'm of the mind that education and healthcare should be totally separate from wealth. You shouldn't be able to buy a better education for your kid and you shouldn't be able to buy better healthcare for yourself. We should all be 'in the same boat' so to speak. In this way the wealthy have to advocate for universal improvements instead of using their wealth to opt out of bad systems.
  - nugget 9y ago
    > You shouldn't be able to buy a better education for your kid Doesn't this miss the fact that a large amount of education - perhaps the majority of young childhood education - occurs at home, and is influenced by family environment? How does the Government recreate a two parent household with the time and resources to cook healthy dinners and spend hours every night reading to their children, for children who are essentially "on their own" once they leave school? Is it even reasonable to expect this to be possible (i.e. reduce or replace the influence of families with Government or third-party involvement)?
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      >Doesn't this miss the fact that a large amount of education - perhaps the majority of young childhood education - occurs at home, and is influenced by family environment? Yes. But despite the fact that it misses this it does capture another huge portion of privilege. >Is it even reasonable to expect this to be possible (i.e. reduce or replace the influence of families with Government or third-party involvement)? No. Which is why I'm not advocating that... I'm not even sure how you could read that from my comments. You and the few other replys here seem to think I'm Stalin or pursuing something that is 'perfect fairness.' The original question was just about reducing the influence of wealth, not eliminating it entirely. You'll forgive me for the long wait time, I got rate-limited and couldn't reply for several hours.
  - coolsunglasses 9y ago
    You can't immunize a system to economic and political influence by moving more of it from the economic to the political sphere. The example of the USSR was already cited, the rich were still rich even though being "wealthy" _formally_ wasn't a thing. People instead played political games to win positions that brought benefits from the State. Most workers aspired to reach a position that brought with it car ownership. All of this serves to make the delivering peoples' needs and desires more inefficient and more purely decided by social and political power than by someone's ability to contribute to society.
beaconstudios 9y ago
that's been tried multiple times (communism/socialism) with generally unpleasant outcomes.
- marnett 9y ago
  What? Reducing the influence of wealth in a country is not the same as 1) having the state own all property or 2) a state ran for workers There are numerous ways to reduce that influence without flipping the entirety of our capitalist economic system.
  - beaconstudios 9y ago
    We seem to be trying them without much luck. To be honest I don't really care where the ceiling is, as long as the floor is reasonable.
    - marnett 9y ago
      As far as our success is concerned, I am aligned entirely with you. I think radical change is necessary to slow down the self-destructive capitalist machine that is the U.S. Unfortunately so many people have been influenced by McCarthyian propaganda that whenever the topic of social and economic reform in the U.S. comes up they simply scream about Stalin and Mao and that is that.

itsjustme2 9y ago

So instead of a multi-generational meritocracy, you want everyone in the same generation to have the same resources starting out? How do we determine the best resources for each generation? How do we distribute the wealth? How do we keep parents motivated to work when their main motivation is to provide a better life for their children?

danharaj 9y ago
Multi-generational meritocracy sounds antithetical to post-enlightenment thinking. It sounds like someone sneezed while saying "aristocracy".
- itsjustme2 9y ago
  Calling multi-generational meritocracy the same as aristocracy is a misunderstanding of what these two words mean. Yes, societies are messy, and what happens in one societal structure can sometimes happen in another, but that does not mean that the underlying rules defining the two are equivalent.
deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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nugget 9y ago

> We just reduce the influence of class and wealth. How? Since the dawn of time, people have been split into rich and poor. It seems to be the most persistent bifurcation in the history of human civilization. Even in a society like the USSR, where there was little to no private property ownership, material wealth was controlled by a small cohort of politically-connected individuals who passed their influence to their children. The best antidote to wealth inequality has been criminality and chaos - plagues, world wars - which seem to be on the decline. It's easy to target a few thousand billionaires and apply some estate tax to recapture fortunes upon death. But the real reservoir of generational inequality - as you imply it to be - seems more likely to be the hundreds of thousands of upper class families who pass on intensive amounts of educational, cultural, social, and financial benefits to their kids in ways that are harder to track and harder to crack down on, and which no amount of Government programs for the poor are likely to replicate. With that in mind, what practical steps can you take to meaningfully reduce the influence of class and wealth?

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Separate society into 'spheres.' So for example I'm of the mind that education and healthcare should be totally separate from wealth. You shouldn't be able to buy a better education for your kid and you shouldn't be able to buy better healthcare for yourself. We should all be 'in the same boat' so to speak. In this way the wealthy have to advocate for universal improvements instead of using their wealth to opt out of bad systems.
- nugget 9y ago
  > You shouldn't be able to buy a better education for your kid Doesn't this miss the fact that a large amount of education - perhaps the majority of young childhood education - occurs at home, and is influenced by family environment? How does the Government recreate a two parent household with the time and resources to cook healthy dinners and spend hours every night reading to their children, for children who are essentially "on their own" once they leave school? Is it even reasonable to expect this to be possible (i.e. reduce or replace the influence of families with Government or third-party involvement)?
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    >Doesn't this miss the fact that a large amount of education - perhaps the majority of young childhood education - occurs at home, and is influenced by family environment? Yes. But despite the fact that it misses this it does capture another huge portion of privilege. >Is it even reasonable to expect this to be possible (i.e. reduce or replace the influence of families with Government or third-party involvement)? No. Which is why I'm not advocating that... I'm not even sure how you could read that from my comments. You and the few other replys here seem to think I'm Stalin or pursuing something that is 'perfect fairness.' The original question was just about reducing the influence of wealth, not eliminating it entirely. You'll forgive me for the long wait time, I got rate-limited and couldn't reply for several hours.
- coolsunglasses 9y ago
  You can't immunize a system to economic and political influence by moving more of it from the economic to the political sphere. The example of the USSR was already cited, the rich were still rich even though being "wealthy" _formally_ wasn't a thing. People instead played political games to win positions that brought benefits from the State. Most workers aspired to reach a position that brought with it car ownership. All of this serves to make the delivering peoples' needs and desires more inefficient and more purely decided by social and political power than by someone's ability to contribute to society.

beaconstudios 9y ago

that's been tried multiple times (communism/socialism) with generally unpleasant outcomes.

marnett 9y ago
What? Reducing the influence of wealth in a country is not the same as 1) having the state own all property or 2) a state ran for workers There are numerous ways to reduce that influence without flipping the entirety of our capitalist economic system.
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  We seem to be trying them without much luck. To be honest I don't really care where the ceiling is, as long as the floor is reasonable.
  - marnett 9y ago
    As far as our success is concerned, I am aligned entirely with you. I think radical change is necessary to slow down the self-destructive capitalist machine that is the U.S. Unfortunately so many people have been influenced by McCarthyian propaganda that whenever the topic of social and economic reform in the U.S. comes up they simply scream about Stalin and Mao and that is that.