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Comment by itsjustme2 | Hacker News Reader

It seems pretty obvious that it usually takes more than one generation's effort to gain certain things in this world. My wife and I work very hard so we can afford to optimize the development of our children as best we can so they can eventually do better than we did. My parents did the same. My parent's parents did the same. If people struggle raising their children, then their children will be at a disadvantage. I guess you could say it's a kind of multi-generational meritocracy. Some people seem to imply that this reveals a flaw in our society, but I am having trouble seeing better systemic alternatives. Can someone please help me understand?

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It's wrong that your personal success depends on a long chain of ancestry that you have no control over.

Your success should depend on your intrinsic merits, which every individual should have an equal opportunity to assess and develop for themselves.

Rich people are the same as poor people at birth, they just have more money.

...uh, is this a controversial opinion? I'm confused.

Highly. Because the corrollary to what you are saying is that parents “shouldn’t” do the best they can for their children.

It’s not wrong at all to work hard so that your children have a better life. For many people, this is the singular reason they work so hard!

I can only aspire to give my children the privilege of a first class education and upbringing, as my father did for me. It’s only recent political movements which try to cast this as something to be ashamed of, or something that needs to be counteracted, and I think many people rightly have a problem with that.

I guess I can see why people would have that reaction as a knee-jerk. But shouldn't we strive for a world where everyone's children have the privilege of education and social standing, and parents can focus on spending time with them, teaching them empathy and understanding, and generally experiencing life with them?

As opposed to one where the knives are out and people think that their children's entire futures must come at the cost of someone else's? And what does that attitude teach the children?

It all comes down to how you propose going about achieving that.

As long as people have bank accounts and can accumulate wealth, there will be a small percentage of people with savings and large percentage of people without. You can take money from people who have and give it to people who don’t, and we do quite a lot of that already.

As long as there are private schools which you can pay to send your children, and tutors your can hire to help them learn, and housekeepers you can hire to have more time to spend working or with family.... then those people who got high paying jobs and worked hard and saved money will be able to give their children a significant advantage in the world, in theory leading to higher functioning, higher achieving offspring.

When you consider that the top 1% of taxpayers pay more than the bottom 90% combined, I think that’s far from this “knives out” picture you are painting. The top 1% very literally have their wallets out to pay it forward.

However the top 1% also earn more income that the 90% of the bottom combined, doesn't it make sense that they pay equivalent amounts of tax? Paying a similar proportion is not exactly the same as "having their wallets out".

And I understand that if you are in that 1% then there is a lot of tax being paid… but there is even more being kept.

But you are 100% correct, there are many ways to transfer "wealth" from one generation to the next, inheritances are not the only way to do it. All of what you mention are absolutely ways that you can use the wealth of the parents to increase the chances of the child. You just need to look at the kids of the rulers in the old communist states to see that! And indeed, even in countries with high inheritance taxes, the richest families tend not to change much inter-generationally, I suspect largely for the reasons that you raise.

Just in case you’re curious;

The top 1% of earners account for ~20% of all income but pay about 40% of all income taxes. The bottom 90% account for about 50% of all income but pay about 30% of all income taxes.

45% of Americans pay no (or negative) Federal tax.

So yes, I think even if it’s a constant percentage (which it’s not) I do respect the top 1% of earners for their massive contribution to our tax base. I don’t personally believe the government has a moral authority to a progressively larger percentage of a person’s incone. And I do believe a person who works harder to earn a larger paycheck is absolutely subsidizing Americans who pay no Federal tax at all, and I’m very thankful for the 1% who pay 40% of the load.

https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...

> And indeed, even in countries with high inheritance taxes, the richest families tend not to change much inter-generationally

inheritance taxes are designed to restrict upward mobility on a timespan of generations. of course the richest families don't change much, the cost of becoming a "richest family" is much higher than the cost of staying a "richest family."

IMO this is a largely American POV: I'm rich so my children are _allowed_ to have a good education, you are not, so your children _must_ have a poor education. This is perhaps an extreme restatement of your view? But in many countries, a good education is considered the right of every child.

That is _not_ to say that as a parent you cannot make material changes in the chances that your children have. You can afford to give them more attention at home. You can afford to give them a safe and supportive environment in which to grow up in. You can (potentially) afford for them to do an unpaid internship, or even to give them a job in your business where they don't need to fight with a million other candidates for a job with real growth and learning potential.

None of this requires that you leave them an inheritance worth millions. And none of it requires that your kids must have a better school than everyone else. Money already confers so many advantages, schools don't need to accentuate them.

No I don’t think that’s an accurate (even if extreme) restatement at all. I said nothing at all about “allowed” or “must”. All children in the US are guaranteed access to a free public school education. And we spend quite a bit of money on providing that service! I went to public school K-12 and my children are going to public school — albeit in a wealthy suburb with a top rated school system.

The question is simple — is it legal to send your child to a private school? Is it legal to send your child to summer school and provide them tutors? If it remains legal to do that, then parents with the time and money and inclination will be able to provide a better and more personalized education for their children.

Keep in mind that when sending your children to private school, you still pay the same taxes and you are freeing up resources at the public school for other children. However I believe studies have shown when the highest achieving students leave the rest of the classroom performs worse without them, so it could still be a net negative for the public school.

The real privilege is the time parents spend with their children at home reinforcing the learning they did at school and providing the positive environment and encouragement a child needs to continue striving to learn. That typically requires a two-parent family that isn’t in financial turmoil.

> intrinsic

How exactly do you expect intrinsic merits to arise if not via your ancestry? Merits don't materialize out of thin air; and even if they did, how exactly would that be fair?

A lottery is more fair than corruption and bribes, but it's still a lottery. There's nothing inherently virtuous about it.

I don't buy into the whole 'pure bloodlines' thing.

It didn't work out too well for aristocracies; 'pure' is potentially another word for 'inbred'. And with the way things are now and have been for centuries, it is money rather than merits that are getting people ahead from square one, so I don't see how you can argue in good faith that ancestry is necessarily as strongly responsible for successful traits as it currently appears to be.

The point is, it's arbitrary either way.

The thread on "HN Ignore Downvotes CSS" reminded me that often the initial reaction may be negative, but over time if the comment is good it will go net positive. Sit back and enjoy the ride--or at least I wouldn't jump to conclusions based on one (or maybe two?) initial votes in the first couple of minutes. And keep in mind that the HN population is big enough that there will be noise, and more so as the topics become more contentious.

But where do intrinsic merits come from? Prenatal nutrition, genetics, role models who taught you "critical thinking" and good character? It's not controversial so much as incoherent.

" My wife and I work very hard so we can afford to optimize the development of our children as best we can so they can eventually do better than we did. My parents did the same. My parent's parents did the same."

yes, they all did... until they didn't and then you are stuck at the bottom because your parents or their parents failed.

You may be stuck, but in many such societies you can do things to give your children a chance to get unstuck.

A society in which you're stuck by virtue of your parent's choices doesn't seem like a meritocracy at all. Why not just call it a "low mobility aristocracy" or a "bounded caste system" or something of the like?

because in an aristocracy or caste system you're truly stuck and your descendants are as well. Not so in the society we live in.

But it shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't be stuck in the first place.

>Some people seem to imply that this reveals a flaw in our society, but I am having trouble seeing better alternatives. Can someone please help me understand?

A society which doesn't massively privilege the children of the wealthy? What are you having trouble with? We just reduce the influence of class and wealth.

> We just reduce the influence of class and wealth.

How?

Since the dawn of time, people have been split into rich and poor. It seems to be the most persistent bifurcation in the history of human civilization. Even in a society like the USSR, where there was little to no private property ownership, material wealth was controlled by a small cohort of politically-connected individuals who passed their influence to their children.

The best antidote to wealth inequality has been criminality and chaos - plagues, world wars - which seem to be on the decline.

It's easy to target a few thousand billionaires and apply some estate tax to recapture fortunes upon death. But the real reservoir of generational inequality - as you imply it to be - seems more likely to be the hundreds of thousands of upper class families who pass on intensive amounts of educational, cultural, social, and financial benefits to their kids in ways that are harder to track and harder to crack down on, and which no amount of Government programs for the poor are likely to replicate.

With that in mind, what practical steps can you take to meaningfully reduce the influence of class and wealth?

> It's easy to target a few thousand billionaires and apply some estate tax to recapture fortunes upon death (and maybe we should do this).

That wouldn't even help.

For example: George Soros. Came from a wealthy family. Utterly destitute after the war. And now he's rich.

Some people simply have that talent, and they pass it on to their kids, both in education, and in genes.

> With that in mind, what practical steps can you take to meaningfully reduce the influence of class and wealth?

Are you sure it's "class and wealth" and not intelligence?

> Are you sure it's "class and wealth" and not intelligence?

I think intelligence is the most important prerequisite, at which point class exerts influence, and then finally wealth - self-made wealth - becomes a reflection of how much of a person's ambition is focused on that area. And luck, of course.

This raises the question of what to do about pre-implantation genetic testing and gene therapies once the genes influencing intelligence can be identified and selected (and eventually modified). I can see a future in which everyone who can afford it reproduces via IVF in order to leverage gene selection, and it's considered socially awkward among the upper class to have a naturally-conceived child (as in, you don't care enough about your child to pay for the best genes). Perhaps when it comes to discussions of inequality, "we ain't seen nothing yet".

yes it is class and wealth. how could you even begin to think otherwise? do you truly think everyone who is rich is just 'smarter' than all other humans?

if so, what particular mechanisms exist for some truly idiotic child born with a trust of $1M, $10M, or $100M to lose their wealth?

> For example: George Soros. Came from a wealthy family. Utterly destitute after the war. And now he's rich.

So he was likely aided by his class, which was never lost when he lost his wealth.

this whole charade that all billionaires in the entire world are geniuses who came from the bottom rungs of society is just a story to instill hope on those ambitious enough to believe there exists meritocratic societies. the media loves to talk about 'new money' billionaires who are, inarguably, quite intellectual (elon, zuckerburg, jobs, etc) - it's just so less sexy to focus on the much larger number of billionaires who just inherited it all...

let me guess, next you're going to tell me that everyone who is a celebrity movie star, tv actor, artist, and photographer is just the most talented in their respective fields and class and wealth had nothing to do with it?

> if so, what particular mechanisms exist for some truly idiotic child born with a trust of $1M, $10M, or $100M to lose their wealth?

The mechanism of humans to spend and consume frivolously. I know plenty of people who are simply uneducated on financial matters and blew through trusts of a few million dollars thanks to accountants and trustees who enabled them to spend in excess of a sustainable withdrawal rate. They aren't too different from lottery winners, many of whom end up broke. That's why I take the view that class and culture > wealth until you start to get into the nine figures range where wealth becomes more self-sustaining, although even then if you look at the top echelon of athletes and celebrities you see similar examples of self-destruction.

The mechanisms that affect newly minted, publicly exposed figures (celebrities, athletes, and lottery winners) is largely predatory investors and money managers. Predators are a lot more successful at taking advantage of poorly educated athletes, etc. Frivolous consumption, which certainly can affect persons of any financial upbringing, is unlikely to have any material impact on those who simply inherit money and do nothing else of value to society. I believe consumerism could be impactful to truly idiotic persons of inherited wealth (with an equally classless, idiotic family surrounding them). A trust fund baby of average intelligence, brought up in a family practicing at least upper-middle class social norms, would likely be perfectly fine.

> That's why I take the view that class and culture > wealth until you start to get into the nine figures

Class, culture, and wealth form symbiosis much before fortunes of 9 figures.

Personally I believe proper taxation structures are much more effective a method to normalize against inherited wealth.

> Frivolous consumption, which certainly can affect persons of any financial upbringing, is unlikely to have any material impact on those who simply inherit money and do nothing else of value to society.

It's just a function of the numbers, isn't it?

A trust fund has $1 million in assets, 1% fees, and beneficiary withdraws $50k (5%) per year. Based on the historical data at firecalc.com, within 30 years, there's a 50% chance the fund has hit $0.

Just in fairness to the non-idiots who depleted their low single digit million trust funds, it's been much more the rule than the exception.

So they might have to go work for Goldman Sachs for a few years after graduating from Wharton, but that's not too big a burden in order to avoid bankruptcy.

Separate society into 'spheres.' So for example I'm of the mind that education and healthcare should be totally separate from wealth. You shouldn't be able to buy a better education for your kid and you shouldn't be able to buy better healthcare for yourself. We should all be 'in the same boat' so to speak. In this way the wealthy have to advocate for universal improvements instead of using their wealth to opt out of bad systems.

> You shouldn't be able to buy a better education for your kid

Doesn't this miss the fact that a large amount of education - perhaps the majority of young childhood education - occurs at home, and is influenced by family environment?

How does the Government recreate a two parent household with the time and resources to cook healthy dinners and spend hours every night reading to their children, for children who are essentially "on their own" once they leave school? Is it even reasonable to expect this to be possible (i.e. reduce or replace the influence of families with Government or third-party involvement)?

>Doesn't this miss the fact that a large amount of education - perhaps the majority of young childhood education - occurs at home, and is influenced by family environment?

Yes. But despite the fact that it misses this it does capture another huge portion of privilege.

>Is it even reasonable to expect this to be possible (i.e. reduce or replace the influence of families with Government or third-party involvement)?

No. Which is why I'm not advocating that... I'm not even sure how you could read that from my comments. You and the few other replys here seem to think I'm Stalin or pursuing something that is 'perfect fairness.' The original question was just about reducing the influence of wealth, not eliminating it entirely.

You'll forgive me for the long wait time, I got rate-limited and couldn't reply for several hours.

You can't immunize a system to economic and political influence by moving more of it from the economic to the political sphere.

The example of the USSR was already cited, the rich were still rich even though being "wealthy" _formally_ wasn't a thing.

People instead played political games to win positions that brought benefits from the State. Most workers aspired to reach a position that brought with it car ownership.

All of this serves to make the delivering peoples' needs and desires more inefficient and more purely decided by social and political power than by someone's ability to contribute to society.

How do you propose to prevent parents from teaching their children?

You also have a built in assumption that education is what causes this success, when I posit it's the result of intelligence, which is the actual driver (and is seen in better results from education).

So instead of a multi-generational meritocracy, you want everyone in the same generation to have the same resources starting out? How do we determine the best resources for each generation? How do we distribute the wealth? How do we keep parents motivated to work when their main motivation is to provide a better life for their children?

Multi-generational meritocracy sounds antithetical to post-enlightenment thinking. It sounds like someone sneezed while saying "aristocracy".

Calling multi-generational meritocracy the same as aristocracy is a misunderstanding of what these two words mean. Yes, societies are messy, and what happens in one societal structure can sometimes happen in another, but that does not mean that the underlying rules defining the two are equivalent.

that's been tried multiple times (communism/socialism) with generally unpleasant outcomes.

What? Reducing the influence of wealth in a country is not the same as 1) having the state own all property or 2) a state ran for workers

There are numerous ways to reduce that influence without flipping the entirety of our capitalist economic system.

We seem to be trying them without much luck. To be honest I don't really care where the ceiling is, as long as the floor is reasonable.

As far as our success is concerned, I am aligned entirely with you. I think radical change is necessary to slow down the self-destructive capitalist machine that is the U.S.

Unfortunately so many people have been influenced by McCarthyian propaganda that whenever the topic of social and economic reform in the U.S. comes up they simply scream about Stalin and Mao and that is that.

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