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

To: JohnM who wrote (10580)	2/1/2006 8:22:25 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541933

But educational outcomes are, themselves, related, to a very strong degree to parents' stratification position. I think I get the essence of the disagreement--definitional. We have a meritocracy, IMO. I've done a lot of hiring. I hired the best person for the job. I never asked anyone about his parents' stratification position. Someone who started out with a lower one may have had to travel further to beat out the one who started out with a lower stratification position. But you deal with the job applicants as they sit before you and pick the better one, not the one who has the higher stratified parents. Or who paid a bribe or is related or was a member of the same sorority or is unlikely to ever show me up. IOW, merit. That's how it works in a meritocracy IMO. It may not be in yours.

To: JohnM who wrote (10580)	2/1/2006 9:17:03 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541933

Re " 1 - It is to a large degree a meritocracy." It was to the "large degree" that I responded. "To a large degree" doesn't mean "near totally" or even "mostly". If you are asserting that meritocracy plays only a small role in our economy than well at least we know where we disagree. 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. If you effectively inherit your higher level education, that doesn't mean that getting an advantage from that higher education is against the ideal of a meritocracy. The education helps you perform more complex tasks at a higher level than other people. In that sense it is a merit (meritocracy does not usually mean based on moral merit, nor is it limited to the merit for a job that everyone would have if they had the same background). There is some element that is dependent on the parents ability to pay. But at least some, and probably a lot are based on the abilities the parents have to motivate and assist in and manage your education. Those abilities are often what got them to the position of higher wealth and social status in the first place. Their is a correlation between wealth and social status of the parents and educational achievement of the children, but a big chunk of that correlation is not direct causation. And if you think graduation from the elite places is still not something elite folk work hard to maintain, read Karabel. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean that "the elite" get special breaks in terms of grading and graduation as well as admission? You didn't argue that before. Re: education and government support is declining. It is not. Both real and nominal government spending on education is higher now than it was 3 years ago, it was higher then than 6 years ago, same with 9, and again with 12. It probably has increased every single year for some time, but since I'm not certain of that I'll make the weaker claim above, and also state that it has increased under every presidency in my lifetime. "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. This conversation branched off from a conversation I was having with Tigerpaw. Tigerpaw was apparently concerned with family dynasties controlling large chunks of the economy. That's at least billionaire level, plain old single digit millionaires don't need to apply. Gates didn't become the wealthiest person in the world because of his parents wealth or his families social advantages. They certainly didn't hurt but he went far beyond his beginnings, so did Sam Walton who was born on a family farm. You might get in to a good college and a reasonably cushy job through family connections but you don't normally get to dominate large sections of the economy through such connections. Sure you may inherit billions but the richest families in the US tend to decline as a factor over time. Message 22122579 Message 22123098 If you don't support Tigerpaw's claims than that last statement you quoted isn't very relevant to you.