[Retric]

Generally being in top 10-5% in the 1600's is worse than being top 50-10% now which has little to do with individual merit. So, IMO the focus should be how good your children are off on the absolute scale not just relative to their peers. Because being 'poor' in the star trek universe may be much better than being 'rich' now.

Now, which tends to help society more when it's run by intelligent and well educated or peoples who's grand parents where intelligent and well educated? I would much rather have a CEO that's competent vs. one whose parents knew how to hack Harvard's admissions process. Continuing this line of thinking having a better public education system makes it harder for your child to reach the top X%, but on an absolute scale your child is better off in a well educated society.

Thus, all things being equal, the better influence you have on your child's success the worse off they will likely be.