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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (10541)	2/1/2006 8:10:16 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541812

I didn't say that we where anywhere close to a pure meritocracy but we are far more of one than the vast majority of countries or economies in history. I doubt anyone could argue with that proposition. But that's not what you said. To quote you: " 1 - It is to a lae degree a meritocracy." It was to the "large degree" that I responded. It's not. There are no end of attempts to actually quantify the degree to which that would apply. But none could ever be construed, at least as of the end of the 20th century, to justify the "large degree" term. One of the things that makes it complicated is the mediating effects of education, the other large determinant. But educational outcomes are, themselves, related, to a very strong degree to parents' stratification position. Thus, multivariate models which, in addition, control for other relevant variables make statements about this a bit complex. (Note none of this language is the language of class. That's a different term, depending on both intergenerational transmission of status, consciousness of such, and collective identity. That's an upper class phenomenon in the US, not a middle or working class one. It's the rich who transmit their position, are quite conscious of it, and organize themselves to perpetuate it.) It's easy enough to cite individual instances of folk who overcame difficult starting points to make a good bit of money, but that doesn't go to demonstrating a "large degree", just that some can overcome. As for Bill Gates, while he didn't graduate from Harvard, he certainly attended it. As, of course, did Steve (the MS CEO, whose name will not spring from my brain cells), who was Gates' roommate. And if you think graduation from the elite places is still not something elite folk work hard to maintain, read Karabel. Or I'll let you talk with the folk in the admissions dept where I taught. But I take part of your point, Tim. One of Karabel's points, at least one that makes the most sense to me, is the degree to which the admissions processes of these three places exemplified a conflict between elite and meritocratic admissions criteria. It was ugly, very ugly. The anti-semitism was among the most prevalent. And, of course, the views of women are a classic of bigotry. Things are better but getting worst principally because higher education at both private and public institutions keeps getting so expensive and government support is declining. As for whether Yale, Harvard, and Princeton were the exceptions, I doubt it. They were the objects of much emulation, at least on the part of the private higher education industry. Many of the graduates from Harvard aren't even millionaires despite the lowered level of difficulty of reaching that level because of inflation and the steep rise in the value of houses in certain areas. I give up.