"In fact, if the last generation is any guide, your child growing up in the top two-fifths today will have a 60 percent chance of being in the top two fifths as an adult. That's the impact of picking the right parents -- increasing the chances of ending up middle- to upper-middle class by a factor of three or four."
Let me get this straight. A kid starting in a bracket that includes 40% of the population has a 60% chance of remaining in that bracket as opposed to the 40% if it was totally random. I would actually have expected a higher %.
The article has other flaws as well, but the one I disagree most strongly with is:
"But in the new aristocracy, it is rarely enough to just get born to the right parents; you also have to work very hard. (Higher earning men are now more likely to work more than 50 hours a week than are men in lower earnings quintiles.) Whatever the systemic injustices, it's also quite clear to everyone ... even parasitic leeches of investment bankers ... that their salaries only come as the result of frantic effort."
Here's what I think is missing from that paragraph. I've tried to label each logical fallacy, but I could be fallacious (hah!) in my labelling. Argue to the point, I'm not interested in getting the fallacy names just perfect. (Here's a source if you want one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy )
1. How can she attack hard work and intelligence? She doesn't state what metric she is using, but I assume it's what she starts the next paragraph with: "one's parents to confer such enduring advantages is obviously unfair." If hard-working well-educated parents teach their children to be hard-working and well-educated, that does not prove hard-working poorly-educated parents cannot. "Hasty generalization" fallacy?
2. What justification does she have to write off "systemic injustices" with a summary "whatever"? Should that not have been the focus of the article? "Straw man" fallacy?
3. Why are investment bankers singled out? "Ad hominem" fallacy?
Perhaps I can summarize what I think are her real points:
The old system was an aristocracy, where people were born into positions at the top of society, and this was obvious unfair. However, this system was not stable.
The new system is (supposedly) a meritocracy, where people have to work towards high positions in society. This system is not obviously unfair. But it is stable, because parents tend to instill the qualities required to succeed in their children.
Her point was that what these two systems have in common is that who your parents were is a good predictor of where you will end up.
Yeah, I'm with you on point 1, particulary since I know a lot of parents that got a grade school education, but taught their children to value education. It is kind of the standard immigrant story.
Her arguments seem really lazy and not well justified.
Let me get this straight. A kid starting in a bracket that includes 40% of the population has a 60% chance of remaining in that bracket as opposed to the 40% if it was totally random. I would actually have expected a higher %.