Is Britain becoming more meritocratic than America?
economist.com
economist.com
"The American myth of meritocracy allows them to attribute their position to their brilliance and diligence, rather than to luck or a rigged system. At least posh people in England have the decency to feel guilty.In Britain, it is politically impossible to be prime minister and send your children to the equivalent of a private high school. Even Old Etonian David Cameron couldn’t do it. In the United States, the most liberal politician can pay for a lavish education in the private sector. Some of my most progressive friends send their children to $30,000-a-year high schools. The surprise is not that they do it. It is that they do it without so much as a murmur of moral disquiet."
The US has a sort of Andy Warhol style egalitarianism of "a coke is a coke and rich and poor alike drink it" going on but not much else. In the US progressive tech workers live in secluded suburbs, in London you see the poshest banker taking the tube without much concern. Exception in the US is maybe only NYC.
I think this is the key bit and that's really well put.
Whoever wrote this is being a little disingenuous. The pipeline from a handful of private schools to the upper echelons of power (via Oxbridge) in the UK is very well known. The fact that the press wouldn't let the PM away with sending their kids to Eton or Harrow doesn't really change this or make the country more meritocratic, it just means we all pretend they're just like the rest of us for a few years.
The whole topic deserves an entire book. Even then, the answer "who is the most meritocratic" won't receive a straight answer. The point that British culture does not allow the prime minister to send their children to fancy schools is a meaningful one to make, among many others.
It puts the UK closer to the Scandinavian/Northern European countries and the USA closer to less-than-democratic countries (MENA, Africa, Russia, China) on this particular axis.
To be clear - I don’t care where David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris et al send their kids to school. I care that such schools exist effectively to officially stamp you as a member of the upper class.
Edit: I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m annoyed with you or the original commenter! I have some strong feelings about this but I am aware that you didn’t create this system, that you are not standing up for it or trying to protect it. We’re just having a discussion and as you say it really deserves an entire book
> In Britain, it is politically impossible to be prime minister and send your children to the equivalent of a private high school.
They are afforded some privacy, but all of Boris Johnson's "legitimate" children went to private schools as far as I can tell.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1141456/Boris-johnso... (sorry it's the sexpress, but this is fundamentally prurient)
https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/08/01/how-many-children-does... "unconfirmed" child
They win elections with media support, even when taking opposite stances day to day because the people that own and run those media companies... Went to school with them.
It's like a big club, and most of us ain't in it.
But if you are in it, you can be stupid, lazy, incompetent or even outright evil and still succeed, aka, fail upwards.
They have been chosen because they are mostly either stupid, or loyal.
Patel is the only one there because she's a leadership threat (as shes the only one more obviously authoritarian and populist than Johnson)
In the last few weeks the UK press has been running stories about supermarket shelves being empty and a general collapse of the domestic logistics system; while the articles split blame for this between Brexit and the self-isolation requirements created during the pandemic, in both cases the buck stops with the government.
There have been other substantial indicators of incompetence at least since Johnson took office.
Despite this, the government has generally been ahead in the polls.
> Johnson was hired by the Times through family connections, and fired for a front-page fabrication within months – on his very first front page story
> In November 2004, Boris Johnson was a shadow arts minister under Michael Howard, Conservative Vice-Chair, and editor of the Spectator – when it was reported in multiple tabloids that he had a years-long affair with one of the magazine’s columnists, which had resulted in two terminated pregnancies.
> Johnson publicly stated the allegations were untrue, calling them an “inverted pyramid of piffle”, and made the same assurances they were false to Michael Howard. When proof of the allegations was presented, Howard asked Johnson to resign, only for him to refuse and therefore be fired for dishonesty, for the second time in his career.
[sidebar: I'd forgotten that Michael Howard was editor of the Spectator. It's basically the official opinion journal of the Tory party]
Grant Shapps is another one with a significant career of failures; https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/16/revealed-gr... he ran a spammy business under a false name.
He's also got previous for cryptocurrency bribery https://www.ft.com/content/cd8f78f8-2850-3109-b577-269eedb1e... and a bullying scandal that involved the suicide of a young activist https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/grant-shapps-...
Gavin Williamson is a fairly minor offender; his only previous sacking was for leaks, and everybody leaks all the time https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48126974
More broadly, the UK has a whole category of unelected legislators - the House Of Lords - who are political appointees, sometimes with money changing hands, who are not accountable to the electorate and cannot be removed. Can't get less meritocratic than that while still being a democracy.
By analogy, should not all British politicians also only eat food provided by government food stamps?
Doesn't matter. Britain does not have better economic mobility for the middle class. This article offers nothing of substance.
Wages have diverged further from assets (namely real estate) in the UK than in the US.
Tuitions have been going up. The quality of the healthcare system has declined.
In fact it could be argued Britain is less meritocratic, because the system holds back the working class and wage earners far more than the United States. You're taxed at excessive levels, while real estate is extraordinarily expensive.
The economic systems are the same. Just as the rest of the world you're rewarded for the assets you hold. Not the "work" you do.
For many years house prices in London increased faster than the median salary.
You made more holding real estate than working.
The United States need to fix its healthcare system immediately. It's too far drawn out and a major strain the entire economy. Then it needs to invest in infrastructure. Then reorganize its institutions, the judicial system, etc.
I agree with much of the rest of your post, but the UK doesn’t have particularly high taxes. If you compare take home pay in typical scenarios, the differences between the US and UK are not huge.
This is a calculator for take-home pay in the UK - https://listentotaxman.com/. Maybe some US people can share how it compares to the taxes they pay.
I specifically mentioned NI because it's easy to forget about it if you only look up the tax brackets.
Taxes are a bit higher in the UK, especially once you get up to higher pay brackets. However, there seems to be a persistent myth on HN that the UK has much higher taxes than the US. (Perhaps it just gets lumped in with the rest of Europe in people's minds?)
Another poster mentions VAT. It's worth noting that unlike with a sales tax, VAT does not apply to every purchase. But certainly it does make some things more expensive in the UK than in the US.
which is a huge chunk of change in the US to get comprehensive cover similar to the UK which is included in general taxation.
Its very complicated * Property taxes in many states of the USA are so high most of the world are shocked when they hear about them * I didn't even pay NYC city tax which pushes income taxes over 50% in top brackets * VAT in UK is much higher than the random sales taxes in the US. * There are two UK National Insurance taxes - there is one the employer pays that most people dont even know about
The solution is to try and get out of London. Unless you're ultra wealthy, buying a house there is just a pipe dream. Things like remote working from countryside towns may tip the scales in the right direction again.
I would like to see the government cease inflating the housing market at the expense of salaried workers. Do it gradually so pension funds have time to adjust.
If you can't afford property -> what you really need to do is leave London.
It's a never ending cycle.
We used to build council housing to fix this "not enough homes" problem but councils lost all their power and money under thatcher.
Take, for example, the cost of university education. In 1990, c. <=10% when to "free" university, this generation, 55% do; paying c. £35k to do so (1x the median salary).
What are we to conclude from this? That the "middle class" is being ripped off? Or that a massive amount of the population has entered the middle/lower-middle class via university that would have otherwise not been there.
This likewise applies to basically all these points. The logic is, "I identify with a 5%er middle class person of the 80s, and I DONT GET WHAT THEY GOT!!" -- despite, now, actually being part of the 55% of the country which has /much/ of "what they had" (-- due to massive wealth increases).
I can understand their rage, even if it seems silly, they've been lied to their entire life, for profit. So yeah, their angry about reality, because they still they believe the lies.
No. Literally none of that is true.
If you had a right to buy house, (a house built and rented for low income workers by the local governemnt) then you would have benefited equally in the property boom: ie bought your house at a discount in the 90s/00s and now its worth 10-50x what it was before. Unlike in the US where "projects" are still worth shit all, it is quite egalitarian.
Mortgages don't take into account your race in the UK, unlike the states.
Once you _own_ a property, its price rises uniformly, so in that sense it is.
However access to owning a property is not egalitarian.
Property is ~10x the average wage, and new builds are low quality, poorly built and more expensive. There are no incentives to change any of this yet.
Overall, society wide, return from ALL kinds of capital - financial and non-financial - combined is dwarfed by wage income.
I also wonder why people keep complaining on the rising house prices while no one ever complains on the rising stocks. Aren't these the same? Except stocks are rising faster on average, "rents" (dividend yield) on them is almost as high now as on the houses, ownership of them is not taxed, they don't need any maintenances, and are infinitely liquid. The only downside is that if they dip, they usually dip deeper than houses, but on the interval on which it makes sense owning the house (20+ years), this isn't the case already.
I complain. It's symptomatic of the same thing - earned income is an ever smaller share of the economy.
People who work for a living make less / GDP every year and the difference gets channeled upwards either through rent or dividends. It wont end well.
that's results at a glance: all residential real estate made it's owners 2743B pounds in 10 years, or about 15% of the GDP in the same period.
Think about industries in the US with pretty much zero government involvement - like software. Software is essentially free.
Maybe the problems are caused by government involvement, and more such involvement is not the answer.
I think that is not the case. The middle classes in the USA have been hollowed out, mostly down to decreasing wage and increasing costs of healthcare, property and education.
The UK only has one of those problems: property costs.
University is funded by an (unfair) tax, which is transparently aimed at the middle income earner. We are fixated on calling it a loan, when its not. Unlike the USA its not going to bankrupt you.
Healthcare is funded by taxation, and is for the average person significantly more comprehensive than the USA.
In the UK, if you are middle class, then you are most likely alright. if you are working class, then you're fucked, because your jobs don't matter, and the safety net that once existed acts as a 100% tax for single mums with jobs (universal credit).
University education in UK (sans Scotland) has gone from zero to GDP 9k a year in fees, the average debt per student is GDP 35k. I know that this quantity and the associated conditions for Americans, or London IT people, sounds like a joke. But AFAIK the average pre-tax graduate job salaries in about GDP 24k.
but its not. Its a ~9% tax that only kicks in after ~25k and disappears at 55(or thereabouts)
the American system are actual loans at commercial rates and terms[1]. apart from you can't bankrupt your self out of them.
[1]well its more complex.
More details here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/15996/does-quee...
People should also look into the crown estate which is worth billions and the Royals directly receive 25% of the income. I think the spirit of the original point still stands.
https://www.dw.com/en/the-crown-estate-the-mysterious-proper...
That data appears to show that the increase in inequality in the UK since the 1980s has been modest compared to the USA.
Like, meritocracy is obviously a lie, then you have far more entrenched class system (and how readily it is accepted by the “lower” classes), next is the fact that the current ruling party got 25% of its funding since Boris took over from 10 people, desperate to foist policy that benefits them, while being detrimental to the vast majority of UK citizens.
The UK is largely shaped by the ossified class structure developed in past decades, and the US is desperately trying to follow in it’s footsteps.
It’s just the natural conclusion of egotism as a guiding principle for a society…
One sign of change though would be accents in adverts and what is being advertised. That I have noticed a change over the decades for the better. Certainly moved on from the days in which everybody was to speak BBC English and best covered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSOh8FEr-1c and https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-north-england-...