If he wrote this again today, I wonder what he would think about the relative "character" of those who produce things of value to the community. It's a mixed bag, from my point of view -- much like the rest of society.
Modern society largely labels the financing and management arms of innovation as the producers.
Perhaps Einstein envisioned the researchers and scientists as the producers.
Thus it would not be Elon who was indicated as the intelligent producer, but rather the nameless researcher tied to a desk at one of his companies doing the work of producing.
And that the "less intelligent masses" includes the management who take that production and mismanage its distribution in maximizing short term gains in exchange for long term losses.
So the interpretation of his sentiment here would really depend on whether he'd buy into the self-branding of the rich and powerful as producers or not.
Anybody who spent any time in Academia knows that "researchers and scientists" can be as flawed as any other person, personality wise, and when it comes to professional conduct, jealousy, greed, backstabbing, etc. they're hardly better. They're also quite spineless, given all their privileges.
Holds even at PhD student level. Just because you studied at PhD level and can "produce stuff" and invent, doesn't make you a better person.
If you're a shitty person, you're now a shitty person in academia or research, whereas before you'd just be a shitty truck driver or secretary.
>Thus it would not be Elon who was indicated as the intelligent producer
Musk is hardly just "financing and management." In contrast with ~all other CEOs, Musk actually spends most of his time (and IMO contributes most of his value) on engineering, despite the ongoing propaganda to the contrary.
In short, the dude is a serious individual contributor. He may be the CEO, but he does a lot of groundwork that you would not expect, and has some serious expertise.
If I were to rephrase it, I would say society works democratically, but unfortunately the masses are much dumber than the real contributors to our society, but because their votes count the same as anyone else, the choices of the masses win elections and make bad choices. This is why there is such food and shelter insecurity.
Their "political votes" appear to count the same but if society rewards them then their economic power gives them outsized "economic votes". Every dollar spent is a vote for the service or product it is spent on.
The quote, as I interpret it, is about Price's law. Not about professions, social or economical classes.
"Intelligence & character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the individuals."
During the lifetime of Einstein, successful and educated mimicked the values of upper classes, even if they just pretended. After the WWII the middle class values took over. Today even upper class pretends to be middle class. Try to appear busy and productive. The "character" and intelligence have little to do with each another.
In those paragraphs, within context, it just meant "some have achieved much for the benefit of the population, but the population as an aggregate does not show the same spirit and ability".
To define the sets of the "well natured" vs "larvatic", the suggestive discriminator of being "benefactors to the whole" was picked.
So,
> It's a mixed bag... much like the rest of society
Yes, the point was that some strive and achieve some progressive "status", "being", "nature", and many do not: it is a wish that such good condition will be largely shared in a future society.
It is a wish that Paretian distribution is transformed into a widespread distribution of desirable «intelligence and character», as a condition for «pr[ide] and justified superiority».
Blaming masses for being not that clever is just arrogance and ignorance of the fact that intelligence is NOT required to live happily and be good to others.
And while scientists will continue this very stupid narrative of high intelligence necessity rulers and ultra-rich will continue to exploit it.
On HN, the option to read it as an Ayn Rand style attack on the poor is likely to have more salience.
But I think, given the preceding paragraphs about having lots of goods that are poorly distributed, and having technology that "could" improve human lives, he meant it as "humanity in general are pretty shitty to each other, but there's a few people trying to do better, which is both smart and morally correct, and he hopes they win out".
This is in the context of 1939 when Adolph Hitler had wide appeal.
Your point about putting the quote in the context of the times is well made.
Take, for example, a hypothetical workers union in a coal mining town. Those people probably have union lawyers and decision makers staffed with the smarter people who make the decisions. It's literally a media trope: old, salty coal miner encourages his son to get educated and leave coal mining. Son gets educated, comes back, contributes to the miners in his own way.