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Their conclusion is that the recovery is "the result of elite networks acting as an invisible safety-net". As a thought experiment, how could this have been avo

Their conclusion is that the recovery is "the result of elite networks acting as an invisible safety-net". As a thought experiment, how could this have been avoided? One columnist [1] suggests that the core action is "the children of the rich [forming] strong social bonds with the children of the poor". But this is hard to do if the rich have their own schools and neighborhoods and what not - so using the Fair Housing Act to further integrate neighborhoods is suggested. But who knows their neighbors these days? If you can pay for private schools, you basically never even have to talk to poor people. The costs of this would land squarely on the middle and upper-middle class, while the wealthiest could still buy their separation. Ultimately, if something similar happened today (immediate removal of 50% of rich people's so-called property or some other major wealth shock), avoiding a similar recovery couldn't be done without banning private schools and removing all children from their parents for long periods of time, along with forcibly relocating the previous property owners and not letting them network with each other. [1] https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/redistribution-won-t-end-wealth-inequality-1.1241076 https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/redistribution-won-t-end-wealth-...

pitaj 7y ago
> Ultimately, if something similar happened today (immediate removal of 50% of rich people's so-called property or some other major wealth shock), avoiding a similar recovery couldn't be done without banning private schools and removing all children from their parents for long periods of time, along with forcibly relocating the previous property owners and not letting them network with each other. And doing so would be a net loss of value. Making people less educated doesn't help anyone.
- toofy 7y ago
  > And doing so would be a net loss of value. Making people less educated doesn't help anyone. There are a tremendous amount of public schools which give incredible educations. Much of the value of private schools is in social capital. While we can certainly point to the education levels of the worst of public schools and compare them with the best of private schools, the resume boost from a private school and the networks which are formed amongst parents and students have a much bigger impact on where a student lands than the actual differences in educations received.
  - pitaj 7y ago
    Prove it. Show the evidence that private primary schools perform no better than public schools.
toasterlovin 7y ago
As far as I'm aware, the authors have not eliminated the genetic confound here. Specifically, the propensity to accumulate wealth and power seems to have a genetic element, which would also explain the phenomena they observed wrt southern slaveholders regaining their wealth and power. > Ultimately, if something similar happened today (immediate removal of 50% of rich people's so-called property or some other major wealth shock), avoiding a similar recovery couldn't be done without banning private schools and removing all children from their parents for long periods of time, along with forcibly relocating the previous property owners and not letting them network with each other. Something that might interest you is the fact that the current elites in China are largely the descendants of the country's pre-communism elite. Social engineering is hard.
- identity-haver 7y ago
  I am kind of playing devil's advocate. I don't think any of that is a good idea. You're basically gulaging people at that point, which would be a good comparison -- did those guys get their money back? There was a thing on HN about how people in England with Norman names are still wealthier than those with Anglo-Saxon names about a millennium later. Now that was a conquest. edit: they claimed to control for "skill" and inheritance (which should cover some of the genetic component) but I don't know how well as the paper is paywalled
tamalesfan 7y ago
"As a thought experiment, how could this have been avoided?" We have good models for this. Many nations have employed highly effective GULAG systems that have achieved excellent results at wiping out all manner of unfairness and inequity. The opportunity hasn't even yet been lost in the US. Cycling the white population through work camps could achieve a great deal in leveling the prevailing disparities.
AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
I don't think it's possible to make rich (and I mean the real rich, not google-software-engineer rich) people move. Most incentives will be either to expensive or too cruel. Middle class, on the other hand, would happily follow cheaper rents and shorter commutes as long as the neighborhood is safe and reasonably clean. The latter two are often the problem though.
carnagii 7y ago
Class is not about money. This was an iron law up until a couple hundred years ago but the American attempt to create a classless society obscures it. The earlier belief that class was about "blood" was crude and probably mostly inaccurate (although genetic affinity does confer some benefits to a group) but the real mechanism for class transference is more likely the unconscious education that children receive from interacting with their parents and their peer group. European history is full of destitute monarchs and nobility. The key to understanding the elite is that they are usually not wealthy - they are deeply in debt most of the time and that is what makes them seem so successful. To understand this simply: suppose you have lots of money. naturally people will try to take it from you and may even kill you to steal it. On the other hand suppose you have lots of debts. Your creditors must keep you alive in order to recover their money and will steer business your way because they have a stake in whatever you earn. So, counterintutitve as it may seem, having (the right) debts will make it easier to succeed then having lots of money.

pitaj 7y ago

> Ultimately, if something similar happened today (immediate removal of 50% of rich people's so-called property or some other major wealth shock), avoiding a similar recovery couldn't be done without banning private schools and removing all children from their parents for long periods of time, along with forcibly relocating the previous property owners and not letting them network with each other. And doing so would be a net loss of value. Making people less educated doesn't help anyone.

toofy 7y ago
> And doing so would be a net loss of value. Making people less educated doesn't help anyone. There are a tremendous amount of public schools which give incredible educations. Much of the value of private schools is in social capital. While we can certainly point to the education levels of the worst of public schools and compare them with the best of private schools, the resume boost from a private school and the networks which are formed amongst parents and students have a much bigger impact on where a student lands than the actual differences in educations received.
- pitaj 7y ago
  Prove it. Show the evidence that private primary schools perform no better than public schools.

toasterlovin 7y ago

As far as I'm aware, the authors have not eliminated the genetic confound here. Specifically, the propensity to accumulate wealth and power seems to have a genetic element, which would also explain the phenomena they observed wrt southern slaveholders regaining their wealth and power. > Ultimately, if something similar happened today (immediate removal of 50% of rich people's so-called property or some other major wealth shock), avoiding a similar recovery couldn't be done without banning private schools and removing all children from their parents for long periods of time, along with forcibly relocating the previous property owners and not letting them network with each other. Something that might interest you is the fact that the current elites in China are largely the descendants of the country's pre-communism elite. Social engineering is hard.

identity-haver 7y ago
I am kind of playing devil's advocate. I don't think any of that is a good idea. You're basically gulaging people at that point, which would be a good comparison -- did those guys get their money back? There was a thing on HN about how people in England with Norman names are still wealthier than those with Anglo-Saxon names about a millennium later. Now that was a conquest. edit: they claimed to control for "skill" and inheritance (which should cover some of the genetic component) but I don't know how well as the paper is paywalled

tamalesfan 7y ago

"As a thought experiment, how could this have been avoided?" We have good models for this. Many nations have employed highly effective GULAG systems that have achieved excellent results at wiping out all manner of unfairness and inequity. The opportunity hasn't even yet been lost in the US. Cycling the white population through work camps could achieve a great deal in leveling the prevailing disparities.

AlexTWithBeard 7y ago

I don't think it's possible to make rich (and I mean the real rich, not google-software-engineer rich) people move. Most incentives will be either to expensive or too cruel. Middle class, on the other hand, would happily follow cheaper rents and shorter commutes as long as the neighborhood is safe and reasonably clean. The latter two are often the problem though.

carnagii 7y ago

Class is not about money. This was an iron law up until a couple hundred years ago but the American attempt to create a classless society obscures it. The earlier belief that class was about "blood" was crude and probably mostly inaccurate (although genetic affinity does confer some benefits to a group) but the real mechanism for class transference is more likely the unconscious education that children receive from interacting with their parents and their peer group. European history is full of destitute monarchs and nobility. The key to understanding the elite is that they are usually not wealthy - they are deeply in debt most of the time and that is what makes them seem so successful. To understand this simply: suppose you have lots of money. naturally people will try to take it from you and may even kill you to steal it. On the other hand suppose you have lots of debts. Your creditors must keep you alive in order to recover their money and will steer business your way because they have a stake in whatever you earn. So, counterintutitve as it may seem, having (the right) debts will make it easier to succeed then having lots of money.