4 ms·

My point is that I don't think it shows that, and just because the U.S. is such an "unequal" society. Moving from the 40th income percentile to the 20th in the

My point is that I don't think it shows that, and just because the U.S. is such an "unequal" society. Moving from the 40th income percentile to the 20th in the U.S. represents a major absolute gain in income and presumably quality of life. I suspect it's not as dramatic a change in Denmark along either measure. To the survey, they're the same magnitude of change, and there's no accounting for the more impressive absolute change in the American case.

_delirium 13y ago
But flipped the other way around, the more impressive American absolute change is only an artifact of its larger inequality. Danes are not moving around between $15k and $40k incomes, because nobody makes a $15k income (minimum wage is $38k/yr). So that whole bit of the "American dream" mobility has just been cut off, with no loss to society... Relative position also matters quite a bit. In Denmark, you can be born on the lower end of society, and end up as one of the country's elites, with greater probability than is the case in the US. I take this as the "Horatio Alger" myth: you are born to a dock worker, and end up President of the USA, or CEO of a Big Company, a unique trajectory only possible in America. But you are actually more likely to make this dockworker-to-PM or dockworker-to-CEO transition in Denmark, contrary to the myth! Put differently, who constitutes the elite in Denmark is less determined by parentage, whereas the American political/economic/cultural elite is more heredity-determined, because the differences from birth are too large to overcome. I think this question of which stratum of the previous generation's families this generation's CEOs/etc. come from has significant implications for society: if it's only from last generation's top-20%, this produces a multi-generational elite, which is generally bad. It could well be that one way to combat the emergence of a multi-generational elite is simply to reduce income inequality.
- judk 13y ago
  Hmm. Steve Jobs Sergey Brin Jeff Bezos David Koch Michael Dell Bill Clinton
  - d23 13y ago
    Hmm. (Your list) * (20000000 other people)
  - okaram 13y ago
    And it may also have to do with your definition of 'dockworker' ; Dell's mom and dad were a stockbrocker and an orthodontist; Clinton was working-class but not poor; same with Jobs (he was adopted at birth, dad was a mechanic, and mom an accountant); Brin's dad is a Math prof and his mom works at NASA; seems Koch's grandad was wealthy (I can't find more on wikipedia; it also says he went to MIT and doesn't mention scholarships, so his family was probably well-off).
    - stuaxo 13y ago
      Koch family were not bad off.. http://exiledonline.com/a-peoples-history-of-koch-industries-how-stalin-funded-the-tea-party-movement/ http://exiledonline.com/a-peoples-history-of-koch-industries...
  - _delirium 13y ago
    I didn't argue that no Americans from poor families become part of the elite, only that it seems to happen at a lower rate than in Denmark. That's what the quintile-mobility figures are measuring, after all.

_delirium 13y ago

But flipped the other way around, the more impressive American absolute change is only an artifact of its larger inequality. Danes are not moving around between $15k and $40k incomes, because nobody makes a $15k income (minimum wage is $38k/yr). So that whole bit of the "American dream" mobility has just been cut off, with no loss to society... Relative position also matters quite a bit. In Denmark, you can be born on the lower end of society, and end up as one of the country's elites, with greater probability than is the case in the US. I take this as the "Horatio Alger" myth: you are born to a dock worker, and end up President of the USA, or CEO of a Big Company, a unique trajectory only possible in America. But you are actually more likely to make this dockworker-to-PM or dockworker-to-CEO transition in Denmark, contrary to the myth! Put differently, who constitutes the elite in Denmark is less determined by parentage, whereas the American political/economic/cultural elite is more heredity-determined, because the differences from birth are too large to overcome. I think this question of which stratum of the previous generation's families this generation's CEOs/etc. come from has significant implications for society: if it's only from last generation's top-20%, this produces a multi-generational elite, which is generally bad. It could well be that one way to combat the emergence of a multi-generational elite is simply to reduce income inequality.

judk 13y ago
Hmm. Steve Jobs Sergey Brin Jeff Bezos David Koch Michael Dell Bill Clinton
- d23 13y ago
  Hmm. (Your list) * (20000000 other people)
- okaram 13y ago
  And it may also have to do with your definition of 'dockworker' ; Dell's mom and dad were a stockbrocker and an orthodontist; Clinton was working-class but not poor; same with Jobs (he was adopted at birth, dad was a mechanic, and mom an accountant); Brin's dad is a Math prof and his mom works at NASA; seems Koch's grandad was wealthy (I can't find more on wikipedia; it also says he went to MIT and doesn't mention scholarships, so his family was probably well-off).
  - stuaxo 13y ago
    Koch family were not bad off.. http://exiledonline.com/a-peoples-history-of-koch-industries-how-stalin-funded-the-tea-party-movement/ http://exiledonline.com/a-peoples-history-of-koch-industries...
- _delirium 13y ago
  I didn't argue that no Americans from poor families become part of the elite, only that it seems to happen at a lower rate than in Denmark. That's what the quintile-mobility figures are measuring, after all.