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Politics : New FADG. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (1593)	6/10/2007 7:35:18 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4152

Cast this in terms of the 2'nd son syndrome. Does it change the outcome if the 1'st son achieves his exalted status by 1) birth order, or 2) competition with his brother? Not that I can see. I completely disagree. It makes a huge difference, especially if the second son is not limited to a fratricidal competition with his brother but is given an even starting place in a meritocratic competition for places inside the local economy. Then his incentives will be to succeed locally. The main driver of the "second sons" is the favoring of the firstborn for inheritance and place. Primogeniture was both the success of the European feudal system (by avoiding Kenya's problem) and the driver of its external aggressiveness. It does not appear particularly relevant to me if a country has large wealth inequality as to whether that is related to genetics or achievement. I know that many people will claim that if it is achievement, all is well, but if it is genetics, it must be bad. Again, it has to do with how those not born to privilege perceive their chances. If they are condemned to dishonorable uselessness from birth, it's a very different state than knowing that the chances of the American Dream are open to them too. That is why I think that movement between quintiles is very important. Most of those pointing out wealth gaps seem to think as you do, that movement doesn't matter much. Often they don't even seem to consider the possibility of movement, but speak as if "people in the upper quintile" were a fixed set.