Oh my god. I don't think you could have misunderstood this article more if you had tried. I can't even comprehend how you could read the article and come away

Oh my god. I don't think you could have misunderstood this article more if you had tried. I can't even comprehend how you could read the article and come away with this conclusion. I can therefore only conclude that you either did not read the article at all, or that you read it entirely filtered through you preconceptions until you had built just enough evidence that what you believed already was correct. Then you rushed over here to comment about how everything is fine because society is sifting itself into the intelligent vs the unintelligent. I actually read the goddamn article so let me restate it for you here to make it clear for you: The new advantage in our economy is essentially education, although the article uses the 5 dollar word "intellectual capital". Because the amount of "intellectual capital" a person has is closely tied to the amount of actual capital their parents have, we are seeing increasing inequality on this front. Rich parents are able to provide stimulation and training for their child from birth by way of having more free time because they can afford it, or by having various tutors for their child. When their child reaches school, rich people get better schooling for their children due to America's insane school funding paradigm. Finally, when those children reach college, rich people are actually able to afford to send their children to good institutions, and receive preferential admission for their "legacy students". None of the above points to society filtering itself on some sort of intrinsic "merit" that a person is born with, leading to some grand meritocracy. Rather it points to a new type of capital being important in our system, and wealthy people being able to cultivate it for their children. Improving prospects for disadvantaged kids might just make them "smart", not that they are born smart and just held back by poverty. TL;DR: Two kids of equal potential will have their economic circumstances dictate just how "smart" they become, and in an economy predicated on being "smart" this will lead to inequality. America should work to allow both children to become as "smart" as they possibly can be.