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Comment by smcj | Hacker News Reader

I found the authors mistake:

"But now that students and parents are paying the majority of the cost of the education [...]"

WTH? Every society which basically favours people with deep pockets instead of intelligent, gifted people (and don't let yourself be fooled by "scholarships") is heading for a huge failure.

Real scientific research, political progress and prosperity of the nation will suffer from it (which is exactly what you can observe in the US).

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In a capitalist society, "people with deep pockets" is an approximation of "capable people".

So capitalist societies don't have inheritance?

In the U.S %69 of billionaires earned their wealth. The percentage of millionaires who earned their wealth is even higher. It's a commonly held misconception that most of the wealthy inherit their money.

Yes there are plenty of people who are capable, but not wealthy and vice versa. However, the OP didn't say "wealthy people == capable people". He said wealthy people are "...an approximation of "capable people"

Btw I'm not going to bother to include sources on my claim. If you want to validate it, the sources are easy to find.

I'm not going to bother proviin

First of all, I said "approximation". Second of all, genes and values are inherited as well.

Is that really the case though? There have been plenty of cases where the subsequent generations have let the wealth crumble (or at least pieces of it, like historic mansions, etc).

The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

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