[thereisnospork]

>we must expect and accept that children from broken, impoverished, or abusive homes will just be, well, screwed in comparison to their better off peers.

It is worth noting that a world where children from broken, impoverished (etc.) homes are not disadvantaged is a world where one cannot advantage one's own kids.

There is of course a strong argument for significant societal investment in keeping children from broken homes from raising broken homes of their own.

[cjslep]

> It is worth noting that a world where children from broken, impoverished (etc.) homes are not disadvantaged is a world where one cannot advantage one's own kids

This is such an uncreative, broken, zero-sum, awful line of reasoning. One can shift up both the bottom and top rungs of a scale simultaneously, so that there would still be advantaged kids despite there being fewer children from broken/impoverished homes.

In fact, such a thing has been done but not necessarily for morally good reasons either. This uplift is exactly what was seen when schools were desegregated in the South and the bottom (black schools) were uplifted: the emergence of private expensive religious schools that were effectively white-only, raising the uppermost advantaged bar as well.

[keenmaster]

If every kid had an equally advantaged upbringing, the world would be a better place. The metaphorical pie would grow rather than just be subdivided more. Furthermore, the gains would be somewhat non-linear. There are many benefits to having a larger network of people on the same psycho-intellectual wavelength. Contributions from the marginal additions to the network would propagate back and forth across the network, adding value along the way in a manner that transcends the self. That is a strong case for greater state involvement and expenditure in setting our youth up for success, especially disadvantaged youth. It’s also a strong case for easing off of our property tax-based system for allocating school revenues, which naturally results in very different school quality. Even if you’re cynical about how much the government can do, let’s say that 20% of disadvantaged youth that otherwise would have led terrible lives instead become productive citizens and parents as a result of stringent, uncompromising education reform. That 20% will break the cycle for their kids, and after a few generations, the baseline level of parenting in this country will be improved by a good amount.

[thereisnospork]

If every kid has an equally advantaged upbringing then by definition a crack-whore[1] is as good a mother as anyone's. I'm no social-psychiatrist but I'd wager 'wanting to provide better for one's offspring' ranks just behind 'food' and 'sex' as primal motivators.

Please don't take this as an argument against taking steps to improve education and opportunity[2], only that anything approaching true flatness would represent a massive disruption of social order and motivation.

[1] Literal.

[2] I agree with most of your suggestions; educated persons are valuable.

[keenmaster]

Yep, I don't disagree with any of that. What I really meant was that we'd be much better off if every kid had at least the baseline quality of parenting in upper-middle-class suburbs. Competition for even better parenting would still exist at the margins, albeit with diminishing returns.

[mnl]

Well, maybe one's own kids aren't really anything to write home about, hence they really could do with that kind of advantage over more talented yet poorer ones. But then what's the "societal" point in perpetuating such state of affairs?

[SuoDuanDao]

Society definitely doesn't benefit, I think we can afford massive inequality much more easily than reduced social mobility. That the richest classes have the option to 'pull the ladder up' behind their children is an indication that democracy is not delivering the results it should.

But I don't think there are easy fixes, because there's also intergenerational social mobility - working class parents going without luxuries to send their children to a better school etc. It's very tough to give poor-but-ambitious families means to improve their lot over a long time without already-wealthy families monopolizing those opportunities.

[TheOtherHobbes]

The broken families in impoverished homes are far less toxic to society than the broken families in privileged homes.

See recent US and UK politics for examples. Although perhaps like attracts like, so if there's enough dysfunction around at all levels you get a politics of brokenness with dysfunctional broken leaders appealing to broken supporters.