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> would see just another kind of machinery for allowing a tiny minority to accumulate wealth. This article is not about a tiny minority's accumulation of wealt

> would see just another kind of machinery for allowing a tiny minority to accumulate wealth. This article is not about a tiny minority's accumulation of wealth. This article is about the massive accumulation of wealth by attaching oneself to a pre-destined Princeling. It's about there being old gerontocratic lines of power, long established, that sometimes rise and fall, but which are the and the only means towards wealth accumulation, the only means to power. There's no parallel here. I fully am disgusted by the West, by how much we let wealth accumulate unchecked, by how much speech & political power wealth buys. It's vile & gross. But there's no vast stasis power, there's no systematic exploitation via governance that this article so eloquently writes up. The concerns you write seem petty to me, small, versus the vast indignity & inequity that the stasis, insular, carefully self-maintaining exploitative Chinese world that is described here puts upon it's regular citizens. Where your are born in the West is HUGELY important. Granted, yes. But the system is not inherently oppressive, resistive to outsiders & upstarts. The West wants your initiative, your gumption, wants collaborative buy in, understands that gain is mutual. The west does reward initiative, gumption, starting things. The odds are not good- if one is not already born independently wealthy- but one can absolutely get ahead, make stuff happen, just by virtue of doing good, trying hard, one's own success & merits. That alone is super exceptionally contrasting. And there's few valent powers that be hovering around actively putting you in your place. Where-as in China one's fate seems utterly purely completely determined by one's friends, by who they saddle their wagon to. We're seeing such vulgar bold signs that the Jack Ma's & other tech-origin business-folk in China are simply not permitted, will be brought to heel.

breakyerself 5y ago
I think China is probably worse. I'll give you that. I think you underestimate how much birth is destiny in the USA. You'd be amazed at how many rags to riches stories in the US are just attempts to be relatable by people who actually come from extreme privilege. Even a lot of successful musicians and actors are only able to attain success because of a safety net in the form a wealthy parents.
- vinceguidry 5y ago
  Here, it is possible to move oneself from working class to upper-middle class by working in the software industry. Our children have free rein to move to the upper class if they're up to the task. In Asia, it appears to only be possible to move up a small rung or two per generation, maybe more if you're lucky enough to win the university lottery. Class mobility is still unparalleled in the West.
  - throwaway2331 5y ago
    Granted a bachelors in C.S. (or to less effect in any other major). Granted x2 you have the funding available to pay for it (much less the time and energy if you have to work to pay for it -- i.e. your parents did not finance your tuition, much less your living costs) Granted x3 you actually have the mental ability to program at all (it is incredible how much this is taken for granted. No, you cannot just "teach" anyone anywhere off the street to understand programming). Without the first, you're "relegated" (tongue-in-cheek) to: learning it in your off-time/going to a bootcamp and hustling hard to break into a first role at a most-certainly shitty-place-to-work at an under-market salary (think $60-70k for "mid-level"). If you do not have a low-performance job or a free place to stay, this is very difficult (bills, and the low-skilled work required to pay them, are exhausting). If you can make it past that insanely high hurdle (see: your circumstances and luck are right), then yes: you too can join the upper middle class if your birth, and all the dominoes that fell after, are "up to the task." N.B. it becomes vastly more difficult to learn anything at all when you're exhausted after a 10 hour day working (with or without a commute) a depressing job and wondering if you'll have any money left at the end of the month. Those weekends really do nothing at all except leave time to catch up on chores. Unparalleled? Only on the surface, granted a robust social safety net. Without someone or something to take off the immense pressure of surviving alone, the most likely outcome is a downward-spiral into poor habits: substance abuse, poor diet, free-time spent in idleness to "recharge," poor sleep, etc. that all compound one another, and speed-up the fall into an inescapable pit of being permanently working class. Once in, to leave is an exception that is always hailed as proof of possibility (sweeping under the rug, how low the real probability is). In this case, one could still semi-honestly say "class mobility" is still alive; but that would only apply to the offspring of our hypothetical working-class stiff (hopefully, who becomes a social safety net for these children -- but I'm not holding my breath).

breakyerself 5y ago

I think China is probably worse. I'll give you that. I think you underestimate how much birth is destiny in the USA. You'd be amazed at how many rags to riches stories in the US are just attempts to be relatable by people who actually come from extreme privilege. Even a lot of successful musicians and actors are only able to attain success because of a safety net in the form a wealthy parents.

vinceguidry 5y ago
Here, it is possible to move oneself from working class to upper-middle class by working in the software industry. Our children have free rein to move to the upper class if they're up to the task. In Asia, it appears to only be possible to move up a small rung or two per generation, maybe more if you're lucky enough to win the university lottery. Class mobility is still unparalleled in the West.
- throwaway2331 5y ago
  Granted a bachelors in C.S. (or to less effect in any other major). Granted x2 you have the funding available to pay for it (much less the time and energy if you have to work to pay for it -- i.e. your parents did not finance your tuition, much less your living costs) Granted x3 you actually have the mental ability to program at all (it is incredible how much this is taken for granted. No, you cannot just "teach" anyone anywhere off the street to understand programming). Without the first, you're "relegated" (tongue-in-cheek) to: learning it in your off-time/going to a bootcamp and hustling hard to break into a first role at a most-certainly shitty-place-to-work at an under-market salary (think $60-70k for "mid-level"). If you do not have a low-performance job or a free place to stay, this is very difficult (bills, and the low-skilled work required to pay them, are exhausting). If you can make it past that insanely high hurdle (see: your circumstances and luck are right), then yes: you too can join the upper middle class if your birth, and all the dominoes that fell after, are "up to the task." N.B. it becomes vastly more difficult to learn anything at all when you're exhausted after a 10 hour day working (with or without a commute) a depressing job and wondering if you'll have any money left at the end of the month. Those weekends really do nothing at all except leave time to catch up on chores. Unparalleled? Only on the surface, granted a robust social safety net. Without someone or something to take off the immense pressure of surviving alone, the most likely outcome is a downward-spiral into poor habits: substance abuse, poor diet, free-time spent in idleness to "recharge," poor sleep, etc. that all compound one another, and speed-up the fall into an inescapable pit of being permanently working class. Once in, to leave is an exception that is always hailed as proof of possibility (sweeping under the rug, how low the real probability is). In this case, one could still semi-honestly say "class mobility" is still alive; but that would only apply to the offspring of our hypothetical working-class stiff (hopefully, who becomes a social safety net for these children -- but I'm not holding my breath).