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> we can work towards restoring social mobility and equality of opportunity for all. Restore to when? Where's the point in history where we had greater social
by Reedx 7y ago
> we can work towards restoring social mobility and equality of opportunity for all.
Restore to when? Where's the point in history where we had greater social mobility and equality of opportunity?
- jonathankoren 7y agoThe late 1940s and 1950s. This was due primarily due to a government program of giving people checks. I am of course, referring to the GI Bill. https://www.marketplace.org/2009/10/06/how-gi-bill-changed-economy/ https://www.marketplace.org/2009/10/06/how-gi-bill-changed-e...
- xyzzyz 7y agoMore people go to college now than during GI Bill era.
- ivalm 7y agoCollege != upward mobility.
- xyzzyz 7y agoI agree, and that's why I point that out: GI Bill is mostly a red herring here.
- jonathankoren 7y agoYes, that is also one of the legacies of the GI Bill. If you think you're being clever, you really need to read up on the legacy of the GI Bill. Perhaps, you could start by reading the article I linked to.
- xyzzyz 7y agoYes, that is also one of the legacies of the GI Bill. If it's going to college that fuels social mobility, then more people going to college today than in 1940s and 50s should mean more social mobility today. Since allegedly the opposite is true, there must have been something else different between 1940s and 50s and now, that has nothing to do with GI Bill funding more people going to college. If you think you're being clever There's no need for snark. you really need to read up on the legacy of the GI Bill. Perhaps, you could start by reading the article I linked to If you have a point, please make it explicitly, instead of having me guess it.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoThe population is markedly higher now. Women are no longer expected to stay at home. Straight entrance numbers are not the best comparison.
- munificent 7y agoLiterally the seventh paragraph in the article: > America has a social mobility problem. Children born in 1940 had a 90% chance of earning more than their parents. For children born in 1984, the odds were 50-50.
- fsagx 7y agoThat a child would likely earn more than a parent, when the parent's earning window spans a great depression and two world wars doesn't seem that remarkable. The 50-50 odds are exactly what I would expect from a nation in some sort of societial equilibrium.
- iguy 7y agoThe mid-20th century. For many reasons, which you can emphasise as you see fit: There was massive government involvement -- the wartime economy was not very Adam Smith, starting with the fact that it could draft its labor. This also set the tone that a CEO's salary & benefits might be like a general's. But also many sectors were tolerated monopolies, or close, for decades. People got promoted up the ranks, rather than having bidding wars. There was high social cohesion, carefully curated for the purpose of winning big wars, and helped by almost zero immigration for 4-5 decades. There were only a few TV stations and they pushed a wholesome christian vision. The stage of technology was such that big factories could use all the semi-skilled labor they could get, and churn out products which improved everyone's standard of living. It helped that energy was cheap. And transport was expensive, so there was little foreign competition in most goods. And that the pension promises they signed in good years were mostly far from coming due.
- imgabe 7y agoThere was also the fact that the productive capacity of almost all of the industrialized world besides the US had been destroyed. China and the rest of Asia were mostly subsistence farmers, and China itself was undergoing a huge famine. It's unlikely we're going to see circumstances like that again. We have to figure out how to make things work with the world we have today, not try to return to some bygone era that was actually really horrible in a lot of ways for a lot of people.
- iguy 7y agoSure that too. And indeed, re-running WWII to try to solve our inequality problems would be a terrible idea. I just think it's worth trying to understand all the ways in which society and the world were different back then. In part so as not to be too easily seduced by anyone offering one of them in isolation as a solution.