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Lots of comments here on the causal side of elite production, but just to float an alternate possibility: This could just as easily be suggesting that "overproduction" of elites is due to, some two decades prior, a creeping sense among the populace of nascent but growing inequality and increased stratification? Or put differently, "Grandpa worked in the plant and made a good life for himself, and I work in the plant and make a good life for my family too, but I see the writing on the all and am going to make certain that my son or daughter becomes a [lawyer/banker/software person/etc]". And the instability today is just that initial rising inequality reaching fruition. Something like that seems much more likely to me, that creeping change exists that is palpable at the individual level, and expressed through the emphasis given to the next generation. |
By the time I was growing up in the 90s and 00s just 2 towns over the very notion of factory work as a viable career had vanished. Everyone was prepped to live in a 2-tier system of college goers and those who weren't heading to college.
Flash forward to now and it turns out that it was only certain types of college that paid off and everyone else went into unstable service jobs or unstable non-technical disciplines.
If we're building a meritocracy that feels like a lottery people are going to be angry. If it works like a lottery, then the people with the most tickets are going to win every time.