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Seems like the obvious is being overlooked? If elites are being overproduced, it suggests that whatever is being used to justify that status isn't warranted, an

Seems like the obvious is being overlooked? If elites are being overproduced, it suggests that whatever is being used to justify that status isn't warranted, and therefore, any inequities are unfair or unjustified. You can move the goalposts but if it's in the wrong direction you just make the problem worse. This might be why the "class grades don't mean anything anymore" rings hollow to me -- it's trying to close the barn door when the horses are already gone. Or to use a different analogy, it's like some variant of the fox and grapes fable (maybe there is a fable for it on its own?), where if the elites' markers are shown to be empty, they start saying "well those weren't good anyway." That might work for awhile but if there's enough of it people start thinking the system is rigged.

lmm 5y ago
> Seems like the obvious is being overlooked? If elites are being overproduced, it suggests that whatever is being used to justify that status isn't warranted, and therefore, any inequities are unfair or unjustified. You can move the goalposts but if it's in the wrong direction you just make the problem worse. The problem is there's no consensus on what's fair. A lot of people think they deserve to be part of the elite, and they have reasonable-to-them grounds for that. The people saying "grades don't mean anything" are probably sincere - they really do think something else is now more important than grades and that's why they focused on that something else. But it all adds up to something far too top-heavy.
pclmulqdq 5y ago
This is actually the point of the elite overproduction hypothesis, although the article doesn't get that across. People who pose the theory don't believe that actual elites are being overproduced, but people who believe they should be elite and act as though they are. Many people with a degree believe that they should be elites (because they would be in the 1960s) and are disappointed that they are not. The elites have circled the wagons and use friendships to determine eliteness (see WeWork and Theranos - where elites started companies that are total frauds and still were billionaires for a while). At the same time, it is good for society to have a meritocratic component to the measure of "eliteness." This is why generals who won battles was a good example, and college degrees used to be: people who became generals or got into college were generally not there purely on merit, but the cream of the crop became apparent through challenges relevant to the society of the day. The meritocratic component also allows for social mobility for people who are really damn good at whatever the merit is: great soldiers could find their way into the roman aristocracy from nothing, and colleges always admitted a few exceptionally talented lower-class people who became great scholars. The "elite overproduction" theory suggests that there is too much social mobility for the wrong people, and not enough for the right people.

lmm 5y ago

> Seems like the obvious is being overlooked? If elites are being overproduced, it suggests that whatever is being used to justify that status isn't warranted, and therefore, any inequities are unfair or unjustified. You can move the goalposts but if it's in the wrong direction you just make the problem worse. The problem is there's no consensus on what's fair. A lot of people think they deserve to be part of the elite, and they have reasonable-to-them grounds for that. The people saying "grades don't mean anything" are probably sincere - they really do think something else is now more important than grades and that's why they focused on that something else. But it all adds up to something far too top-heavy.

pclmulqdq 5y ago

This is actually the point of the elite overproduction hypothesis, although the article doesn't get that across. People who pose the theory don't believe that actual elites are being overproduced, but people who believe they should be elite and act as though they are. Many people with a degree believe that they should be elites (because they would be in the 1960s) and are disappointed that they are not. The elites have circled the wagons and use friendships to determine eliteness (see WeWork and Theranos - where elites started companies that are total frauds and still were billionaires for a while). At the same time, it is good for society to have a meritocratic component to the measure of "eliteness." This is why generals who won battles was a good example, and college degrees used to be: people who became generals or got into college were generally not there purely on merit, but the cream of the crop became apparent through challenges relevant to the society of the day. The meritocratic component also allows for social mobility for people who are really damn good at whatever the merit is: great soldiers could find their way into the roman aristocracy from nothing, and colleges always admitted a few exceptionally talented lower-class people who became great scholars. The "elite overproduction" theory suggests that there is too much social mobility for the wrong people, and not enough for the right people.