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by sn41
2558 days ago
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"Tailspin" by Stephen Brill is a relevant read in this context. If you measure the correlation between which percentile of income one's parents lie in a generation and which percentile of income one lies in a generation, it might be very high in most modern societies. This itself might indicate that there are problems with social mobility when it comes to meritocratic societies. |
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Making success (income, etc.) uncorrelated between generations would require a lottery. This includes a lottery for parental care, for DNA, for attractiveness, and so on. It really isn't possible. Getting close would require severely restricting choice. We'd have to assign employment and spouses by lottery.
Going the other way, making success fully determined by parental success, would also require severely restricting people from choosing their own lives. It might be a bit less extreme. We'd still have to assign everything to people, but it would be according to parental success instead of a lottery.
The closest we've gotten to those extremes seems to be communism and feudalism. Either one forces people into choices against their will. Either one creates inefficiency.