# Meritocracy, Winner-takes-all and class **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 17, 2002, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303 "2002-12-17T10:56:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/21 "2002-12-17T21:34:33Z")
Chumpsky, you do know that the average doctor is in the top 1% of the population in terms of population, right? And so aren’t they automatically in the “ruling class” and therefore automatically trying to step on the poor? ---
**Author:** ![Chumpsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chumpsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chumpsky)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/22 "2002-12-17T22:04:21Z")
\*\*Neurotik \*\*=\> \*\*Chumpsky, you do know that the average doctor is in the top 1% of the population in terms of population, right? And so aren’t they automatically in the “ruling class” and therefore automatically trying to step on the poor? \*\* No. Doctors are not capitalists. That is, a doctor, _as a doctor_, is not a capitalist. True, some doctors are part of the ruling class, but they are not capitalists. Actually, just within the medical profession we can see exactly how well monetary compensation corresponds to “merit.” Look, for example, at a doctor who works for the poor making 40 k (I actually know a few doctors who do this), and compare them to the Hollywood plastic surgeon. Whose work has more merit? Who gets paid more? **robertliguori** =\> **Chumpsky, capitilism doens’t say that Joe Moneybags is better qualified to have/spend 100 million then you. It just says that it’s his damn 100 million, and if you don’t like it, you’re free to start a company and make your own damn 100 million.** The question is regarding _merit_. The claim is that capitalism rewards _merit_, that Joe Moneybags _deserves_ his 100 million. I dispute this claim. ---
**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2002, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/23 "2002-12-17T23:51:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Bill Gates, for example, has never contributed anything to society. You may want to pick another example of the Evil Greedy Capitalist Who Gives Nothing To Society, Chumpsky ol’ pal: > **[Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation](https://www.gatesfoundation.org/)** > > We are a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world Gates is one of the biggest philanthropists out there. Sorry to burst your bubble. Jeff ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/24 "2002-12-18T01:00:24Z")
Bill Gates probably contributes more to society in terms of jobs and creating lasting wealth than any free-clinic doctor. There are over [http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/inside\_ms.asp](http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/inside_ms.asp) microsoft employees. That does not include thousands of other jobs created by companies that sell, consult for, and support Microsoft products. Compare enabling thousands of people to lead productive lives vs treating a couple of crack heads and kids with chicken pox and then tell me whos adding more to society. ---
**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/25 "2002-12-18T01:28:45Z")
Very true, msmith, but I figured Chumpsky would just say that Gates was oppressing all those workers and stealing their wealth. Of course, I’m sure he can find a reason that the Gates Foundation is evil, too. 🙂 Jeff ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/26 "2002-12-18T02:46:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kabbes \* > \*\* > > 1. We need meritocracy to encourage success. But we need to think carefully about what we do with those who don’t succeed.\*\* You have written a great OP, but you’re going to hve to define this part a little further. What do you mean by “don’t succeed?” Not everybody opts to go for the big money, you know? Some people prefer a job that they find rewarding and pays less to one that would pay more but is less rewarding. Has that person failed? For example, I left a succesful career trading bonds in NYC and bought a farm in the country. It took me five years to earn what I had earned in my last year in NYC. Now I do well, but not fantastic. My career now is neither particularly interesting, nor challenging, nor rewarding. I can however do it very well with minimal effort. I earn more than sufficient money, and live my life my way. I consider myself successful, but I don’t think I would be by your definition of striving for all the money I could get. Is a garbageman making 25k a year a failure? What exactly is a failure for purposes of this debate? > [@](#): > > **Winner-takes-all is _bad_.** We have no king of the world. Nobody controls everything. It doesn’t look like winner takes all to me. There’s a lot of people out there like me that do fairly well but by no means have it all. Are we not winners? > [@](#): > > \*\*Noone deserves poverty just because they don’t have the skills that happen to be the current set needed to win. \*\* Since when does anyone “deserve poverty?” Does a cow or lump of brocoli deserve to get eaten by me for dinner? Should I not eat it? What does deserve have anything to do with anything? Last I checked the world was round, not fair. The concept of “deserve” is a very subjective and arbitrary one. It’s infinitely relative. Who deserves anything. When you say “nobody deserves poverty,” are you being literal? And what about poverty? Even a very poor person in this country is doing almost unimaginably better than a very poor person in the third world. Personally, I think if you have food water and shelter today, than you are not poor. Even if you don’t does that mean that your life is not rich? My father has an interesting take on this. He was a Recon Marine and a Sniper in Vietnam. He lived for days on end in absolutely horrendous conditions. Did he deserve this? He grew up without a father. Did he deserve this. My father never considered himself poor though. He had a trick. He carried a can of Chef Boy R D ravioli with him. When things were absolutely miserable he’d pull out his can of ravioli, and compared to everybody else he was rich. As a sniper my father was frequently by himself or with only a spotter supporting other troops. He was briefly captured and had all his teeth, every single one, knocked and pried out of his head by his captors while they questioned him. Ironically, he had no idea what he was being questioned about. He didn’t know enough Vietnamese, and they didn’t know enough English. Did my father deserve this? I think of deserve as a very abstract concept, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the real world. [uote]\*\*2) There is a problem with the fact that the winners of the meritocracy are able to establish a class structure to pass that success onto their children at the expense of other children. [/quote] \*\* Can you define this problem, because again I don’t see it. Parents have always passed on success to their offspring. That’s the history of biology, the imperative behind life itself. That success comes in many forms. You in fact, are a colossal badass of evolution and privilege derived from your ancestors, and we are no longer bacterium swimming in primordial soup specifically because privilege is passed on. This takes on more forms than simply the transference of genetic material. Animals compete against each other. Animals become extrinct because of competition, and the next generation recieves the benefit of a privileged position in the ecology until the competition heats up again, and things progress and evolve. This dynamic in modern global society is going on in many fashions, and not just with money. The wealthy generally don’t produce as much as the poor. The next generation if not prepared properly, if not worthy itself often squanders its privilege and loses it. Look at famous families like the Kennedy clan. Privilege has it’s own problems, and as privilege is squandered it allows others to profit into privilege themselves. Remove poverty and remove privilege and you are tampering with the driving force behind human nature. You’re like a kid who’s found a live fusebox, and wants to play with it with a screwdriver. You’re messing with very powerful forces that you don’t understand. Nobody deserves pain, but it serves a very real purpose. Remove the ability to feel pain from a human and chances are he won’t live long. He will injure himself in some minor or major way, and not even know it. That’s why lepers lose body parts. They don’t know they’ve been injured. They don’t know they’re hurt, and the wound festers and grows and becomes a lot worse than it would have been had the person been able to feel pain. I suspect a lot of entitlement programs are about as helpful as giving a person leprosy. The pain of poverty, the potential starvation of oneself or children is a wonderful and terrible incentive. If you take it away, a person has no more incentive to fix their circumstances then a leper does to fix a wound he cannot feel. It festers and grows. Personally I think pain, and poverty and wealth and privilege are very important things, and tampering with them is like anesthetizing the body of society so that it feels no pain. It seems to me an incredibly stupid thing to do. For all you know the wealthy and privileged class of today may be the rabbits of tomorrow fed on by a lean hungry and capable underclass that has become formidable through the forge of poverty. This has been the history of the world. It has often happened violently, but not always. I sit here and can’t think of know rationale ethos from a societal standpoint that poverty and privilege would be something you’d want to do away with it. It’s like pointing at a car and saying “engines are bad,” or pointing at a person and saying “hearts are bad.” Poverty and privilege are driving forces that lead to the betterment of everybody. They are the reason that the very poor of today lives better and more wondrously than the very rich of even 200 years ago. Remove these things and you condemn the society you have removed them from to stagnation and death. It will be killed by a more competive society. It has **always** happened this way. Pain is not a bad thing, nor is pleasure. They are very important to us as organisms and we would die very quickly without them. Poverty and privilege are the analogues of pain and pleasure in the societal organism. It dies without them. They are desirable things. Thankyou pan \*\* [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![barton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@barton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barton)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/27 "2002-12-18T03:33:46Z")
**Scylla** , that was an elegant reply to the OP, even though I have issues with it. It’s very well to say that poverty is necessary - there’s no way to get rid of it, anyway, at least relative poverty. Are you advocating, then, that there be no efforts to minimize it, so as to better bolster its incentive effects? That kind of sounds like, “The more poverty/privilege there is, the less there will be.” ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/28 "2002-12-18T04:15:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by barton \* > \*\ ***Scylla** , that was an elegant reply to the OP, even though I have issues with it. \*\* Thanks! > [@](#): > > \*\*Are you advocating, then, that there be no efforts to minimize it, so as to better bolster its incentive effects? That kind of sounds like, “The more poverty/privilege there is, the less there will be.” \*\* I don’t know. Personally, I think it’s like pain. I think it’s a great thing that our capacity for pain and pleasure is large. On the other side of the coin, I think it’s a bad thing that pain gets such a bad rap. I think that just about every effort we make to alleviate poverty has backfired and created more. Taking from the privileged and giving to the poor seems on the surface like a great idea, but it hasn’t worked. I read (and it was like 5 years ago, so I’m not going to look for a cite, it may not be true) that since 1960, enough money has been spent on programs to alleviate poverty to buy the fortune 500 outright today. Whether or not that’s true we’ve spent an enormous amount on alleviating poverty without success. I question the goal. Alleviating poverty is a bad idea, just like alleviating our body’s ability to feel pain is a bad idea. If we want to minimize poverty, I think there’s two things that we have to do, and unless we do both it won’t work. The first part is easy. We have to make poverty worse. We have to make it more painful, more intolerable. The second part is hard. That’s opportunity. Make poverty hard, and ensure that people have the opportunity to alleviate it on their own, and the number of people who are poor will decrease very rapidly. I think it’s a mistake to beleive that people have the right to an education, or to a roof over their heads, or even to food. I think that has to be modified. The new thinking should be that people have the right to the opportunity for these things, but not the things themselves. We shouldn’t be spending our efforts alleviating poverty any more than we would treat an infected arm with novocaine so that the patient won’t feel it rotting away. It needs antibiotics. Pain releif is a distant second. Similarly we shouldn’t be spending our efforts or dollars alleviating the pain of poverty. It needs to be treated with the antibiotic of opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/29 "2002-12-18T04:19:03Z")
So you are against public schools or something? ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/30 "2002-12-18T04:35:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Neurotik \* > \*\*So you are against public schools or something? \*\* Exactly the opposite. I’m against babysitting as a substiture for education. I’m against the mediocre quality of the schools we provide the poor. Every child has to have the opportunity for a first rate education. A poor kid in a ghetto has no opportunity for a decent education. The schools suck. “Education” is a right though. We can’t toss bad students out of school. We’ve removed “tracking” from public schools. What that means is that the kid who wants to work his balls off and study and go to Harvard is in the same classroom with the kid who doesn’t care and won’t work. We need to track. The committed students have to be educated to the extant of their ability and desire, and those classes have to be a privilege, as being in school has to be a privilege. The opportunity **must** be there, but the privilege must be earned. That privileged is earned by being a committed student. Uncommitted students need to be tracked to lower levels, or shown the door. Leave them the opportunity to earn the right to move up in the tracking, and give the ones that you show the door the opportunity to earn the right to come back. Those in poverty need the opportunity for a superior education, but you can’t force them into it. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/31 "2002-12-18T04:56:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElJeffe \* > 2.) I really don’t see too much problem with the passing of wealth from one generation to the next. It may be less than fair that Bill Gates Jr. gets to start life out with countless riches, but it would be more unfair to deprive Pappa Gates the right to give his money to his children. It is worth pointing out that Bill Gates Sr (i.e., the father of THE Bill Gates) strongly disagrees with you on this point if you mean by “deprive…” that he has to pay a hefty estate tax: [http://www.pgtoday.com/PGT/Articles/reflections\_on\_the\_estate\_tax\_gates\_interview.htm](http://www.pgtoday.com/PGT/Articles/reflections_on_the_estate_tax_gates_interview.htm) (Of course, we know that you conservatives know more about what is unfair to Bill Gates than he does.) ---
**Author:** ![Azael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a8b319/32.png) [@Azael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Azael)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/32 "2002-12-18T07:33:40Z")
I liked this part… _from the above cite:_ > [@](#): > > \*\* > Grote: Does the estate tax cause people to give more money to private nonprofit charities than they would otherwise? > > Gates: Well, I certainly have a huge affection for private, charitable operations and am pretty deeply involved in that. \*\* He has a pretty interesting perspective, especially coming from such a novel source. Hasn’t convinced me yet though. I am in absolute awe of **Scylla’s** clarity and elegance in analysing many of the more realistic elements this issue touches on. “Fair” is a word that is often open to creative interpretation, especially when weighed against something like “personal responsibility.” Both terms can be nebulous (yet no less important). The best we can do is extend the _opportunity_ of success to everyone. If aristocracy means “rule by those who are most fit” then the only way we can make this happen in reality is to raise the standard of education across the board. I have the feeling that one of the reasons why “aristocracy” came to to be associated with the “nobility” is because the “nobility” were just about the only one’s who could afford to educate their progeny. In our capitalist democracies the ability to rise to the levels once held exclusively by the nobility is allowed to everyone, as is the access to enough education to make it happen. We should not take away their ability to pass that success on to their children. Instead our focus should be on helping the children who are not so “lucky.” Without stronger universal education “rule by inheritance” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. > [@](#): > > 1. We need meritocracy to encourage success. But we need to think carefully about what we do with those who don’t succeed. Winner-takes-all is bad. Noone deserves poverty just because they don’t have the skills that happen to be the current set needed to win. > > 2. There is a problem with the fact that the winners of the meritocracy are able to establish a class structure to pass that success onto their children at the expense of other children. I don’t want people dying on the streets anymore than you do, I would like there to be at least a minimum standard for lifestyle in this country; and I certainly don’t see anything wrong with looking for ways to make that happen. But, as has been pointed out, it is not always “winner take all;” there are many graduations to success. “Success” itself is often a word best reserved for personal interpretation. I don’t lose too much sleep at night about those who started out in this life with more than me because they are not me; the hand they were dealt is their own and they should play it as fortune and ability dictates. Insurance would be nice in the game of life but if it becomes a crutch then the motivation to create something better dries up. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Poverty and privilege are driving forces that lead to the betterment of everybody. They are the reason that the very poor of today lives better and more wondrously than the very rich of even 200 years ago. > > Remove these things and you condemn the society you have removed them from to stagnation and death. It will be killed by a more competive society. It has always happened this way. \*\* Not comforting but very real, the ghost of failure is neccessary in order to drive a competitive society onward. I’d say more but it’s getting late… ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/33 "2002-12-18T13:45:03Z")
Stimulating posts, folks. > [@](#): > > _Scylla_ > What exactly is a failure for purposes of this debate? That’s a good question, and I think what people have said about _opportunity_ is a key issue for me. Someone fails in an important sense if they can’t provide their children with the chance to make something of their talents. > [@](#): > > _Scylla_ > You in fact, are a colossal badass of evolution and privilege derived from your ancestors, and we are no longer bacterium swimming in primordial soup specifically because privilege is passed on. I disagree for two reasons here: 1. Though we are a product of evolution we are no longer constrained by it in the same way that wild populations are. We can agree to limit competition in ways that benefits all people, our genes be damned. Indeed, that’s what modern society is. 2. In human society, the pursuit of gains can generate a surplus. But it doesn’t have to be that way: the pursuit of gain can be destructive. Crudely, if there is one fancy red car - the ownership of which signals success - efforts made to acquire it are a waste of effort from society’s point of view (in economics this is called “rent-seeking”). The trick for a society is to try and get lots of competition of the first sort and as little as possible of the second. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/34 "2002-12-18T14:30:52Z")
hawthorne: I don’t think that the concept that humanity is evolving is a prospect that is really disputable. You say that humanity is no longer a wild population. Who is taming us, then? Who is controlling us? If you claim that we are self-taming, self-organizing, than how does that break us free of the constraints of evolution? Bees and termites organize and work together. Their populations are still wild and evolving. Modern society exists because a degree of cooperation is in our best interests as a whole and as individuals. I think it’s a foolish and dangerous thing to beleive that we have somehow passed beyond the constraints of evolution. Rent seeking seems like a great example of evolution in action. It gives the wealthy and unproductive something to squander their assets on. It’s not good for the economy as a whole, but it’s good for the societal organism. ---
**Author:** ![IndependentVoter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e9a140/32.png) [@IndependentVoter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IndependentVoter)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/35 "2002-12-18T15:31:04Z")
I have two major questions about the OP. > [@](#): > > Once upon a time, in around the 1960s, the western world almost achieved it. Could you explain what you mean by this? What was different then? > [@](#): > > Winner-takes-all is not good. Because Joe Schmoe is dumb, does he deserve to end up destitute? Why? Maybe Joe is hard-working, but because he doesn’t have specifically wealth-generating talents, he is on the scrap heap. This strikes me as inhumane. Maybe it’s just me, but I see opportunity for pretty much everyone out there. The mentally handicapped are even working. Could you give us one or two examples of a hard working, destitute person? A couple of other questions on your position kabbes: > [@](#): > > Meritocratically, it is disasterous. I want people to grasp why inheritance causes such problems. Are you against all inheritance? Is there some limit that is ok to pass on? If so, what makes that specific amount ok, but a higher one wrong? What about if both parents die with small children. Is an inheritance any less fair than a life insurance policy? ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/36 "2002-12-18T15:39:02Z")
The problem with the OP is that it treats wealth creation as a zero-sum game. It is not. When a person creates wealth he does it not only for himself but for others to. An example of this is Tiger Woods. He is so much better than the other players he is getting a large share of prize money and endorsements. This does not mean that other golfers are going broke, on the contrary they are benefiting from the increased interest in golf that Woods is producing. While there are individuals who might be making more if he wasn’t around, golfers as a whole are making more money than if he gone into chartered accountancy. When a person generates wealth through economic activity they wealth created is felt throughout the economy. Bill Gates has made a lot of money for himself, but he has also made alot of money for his employees, his stockholders, his customers, merchants in Redmond, etc. If he had decided to spend his life living off his dad’s money instead of creating a company that is wealth that would not have been created. Also it seems that the middle class is ignored. The vast majority of Americans are middle class and have more than adequate nutrition, and access to education. ---
**Author:** ![kabbes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e99b99/32.png) [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/37 "2002-12-18T18:29:30Z")
No, **puddle** , the OP does not assume that. The OP assumes that just because the Anti-Woods is _not_ capable of generating wealth, this does not mean that they deserve to be left to rot. I’m concentrating on the bottom 1% here, not the top\* 1%. The ones who create no wealth at all. **Scylla’s** argument I found very interesting and, as usual, a damn good read. And I can accept the benefits of negative stimuli. But like **hawthorne** , I believe that we as humans manage to raise ourselves above the merely bestial. We certainly control many of our natural instincts. And more critically, my morality is focused on one person at a time, not ever the super-organism. I think that we can only improve the world soul by soul. So I find it hard to accept any case of letting an individual suffer for the greater good. **Voter** : > [@](#): > > Could you explain what you mean by this? What was different then? Well, as is traditional in soap-box speaking, I was engaging in a little rhetoric there. But the thrust was that there was a general motion throughout the 40s to 60s towards a different way of living. A more inclusive way of life. Several countries dusted out their welfare states and labour movements got a big kick up the backside. But since the early eighties - the Reagan/Thatcher years - this seems to have receeded to a “look out for yourself” mentality. > [@](#): > > Maybe it’s just me, but I see opportunity for pretty much everyone out there. The mentally handicapped are even working. > > Could you give us one or two examples of a hard working, destitute person? I suppose it depends what you mean by destitute. Certainly, however, I see individuals who work 8 or 10 hours a day - and a lot harder than I do in shittier conditions - for a minimum wage. Single mothers, for example, who then must rely on assisted housing and state support. What concerns me in the OP in particular is that I seem to hear an ever increasing clamour to reduce or even remove this state support. The system is already stacked against this woman - we want to make it even worse? > [@](#): > > Are you against all inheritance? Is there some limit that is ok to pass on? If so, what makes that specific amount ok, but a higher one wrong? Yes, in principle if not practicality I am against all inheritance. Inheritance is the antithesis of competition. Saying that, I waver somewhat when it comes to the continuation of a family business. Well actually I waver absolutely. I’m guess that in finance terms I’m talking about non-capital inheritance. There is a distinct difference between taking over the running of a business and simply receiving one’s parents’ house as a windfall. > [@](#): > > What about if both parents die with small children. Is an inheritance any less fair than a life insurance policy? Good question. I’m not sure. I can’t bring myself to suggest that children should be left without the upbringing they would have had. Even principles have a limit. A few people have questioned my “winner-takes-all” stance. I should clarify what I mean by winner. Basically, imagine that person X will have the same attributes as person Y, except be slightly less able. In such a situation, person X will gain a positive position compared to person Y. Winner-takes-all is the situation where this small advantage can lead to disproportionate gains. I submit that this situation is seen around us all the time. It’s certainly true for me. I don’t want to bring personal issues into this, so I’ll be vague. But because I am perceived to be ever so slightly “better” at my job than a typical peer, I am able to gain a job that pays something like 4 times as much. Will I generate 4 times as much income? Possibly, hard to say. But that isn’t really the point. Regardless of whether I make the _company_ four times as much money, I am unlikely to add four times as much to national output, since in part that money comes from wealth-generation but in part it comes from playing the game that much better than those on the other side. It’s difficult to put these concepts into words, so you’ll have to excuse me. Incidentally, I’d say that in general the middle classes _are_ winners. Maybe “winner-takes-all” is a misnomer; I just use it because it is in reasonably common use as an economic term. “Loser-gets-nothing” is more the point. Basically, if you do a job which has no **direct** financial impact, you have no **direct** worth. This is true even if you add immeasurably to the overall economy (see _tragedy of the commons_ and _externalities_ for more explicit treatment of this concept). This lack of direct worth is translated into a disproportionately low pay. As such someone may do a job that is extremely valuable to society, such as manual labour on the roads, and yet get paid a relative pittance to do it. I’m concerned that: a) this gap is widening b) it is becoming harder to break out of the cycle, due to the aforementioned fact that quality education is the only way out and quality education is increasingly something one can only buy; and c) there is increasing call for removing the safety nets in society that help those who, for whatever reason, are not capable of playing the game as well as the rest of us. pan ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/38 "2002-12-18T20:29:05Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes, in principle if not practicality I am against all inheritance. Inheritance is the antithesis of competition. **AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!** How could you say that? it’s such a dunderheaded falsehood. Inheritance is the very basis of competition **biologically** and **socially.** Remove it an you remove the driving force behind the will to excel. I’m appalled that you think it’s the government’s business to meddle with people’s property and will to excel in such a fundamental manner. Being born to rich parents is certainly lucky, but so is being Bill Gates’ old school buddy. A lot of the self-made rich get that way through mere luck or happenstance. They happen to be at the right place at the right time. Should not Steve Ballmer’s personal wealth be stripped from him? Did he deserve it? Couldn’t it just as easily have been me who was Bill Gates’ buddy? The idea that it is the government’s business to be medling in the private lawful affairs of its citizens and redistributing their wealth is lunacy. **Every** attempt at government redistribution of wealth has been calamitous. By what insane logic does the fat, choked and inept bureacracy of the government know better what to do with wealth than the person who created it? The problem is not people doing well. The government should encourage people to do well. It should want people to do well. When people are doing well, and providing for themselves and for their families for generations to come that is a good thing! It means society won’t have to support them. People doing well for themselves and their children is an inherently good thing, and the government should stay out of it and leave it the hell alone. You don’t punish them for doing well and take away the fruits of their labor. They should be rewarded. Success is not the problem. Failure is. You don’t solve failure by ruining the successful. Penalizing the successful and rewarding the unsuccessful is an inherently stupid thing to do from any viewpoint. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/39 "2002-12-18T20:44:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kabbes \* > Yes, in principle if not practicality I am against all inheritance. Inheritance is the antithesis of competition. Saying that, I waver somewhat when it comes to the continuation of a family business. Well actually I waver absolutely. I’m guess that in finance terms I’m talking about non-capital inheritance. There is a distinct difference between taking over the running of a business and simply receiving one’s parents’ house as a windfall. I don’t see the diference and I don’t see the benefit of taking away everything a person has spent a lifetime earning and building for thier children just because of some overblown sense of guilt for the poor. In principle, I think wellfare for all but a select few (like the disabled) punishes those who work harder and smarter to generate wealth and rewards mediocrity and laziness. It creates a drain on society because every year, a few more people on the boarderline will see the folly of working at jobs they hate instead of collecting welfare checks. Most of your suggestions sound well meaning but they don’t take into account that you can’t deal on an individual by individual basis. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2002, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303/40 "2002-12-18T20:57:33Z")
kabbes: > [@](#): > > And more critically, my morality is focused on one person at a time, not ever the super-organism. I think that we can only improve the world soul by soul. So I find it hard to accept any case of letting an individual suffer for the greater good. So you prefer taking care of the welfare of individual trees rather than thinking about the forest. Ok. There’s nothing wrong with that. You are however absolutely wrong to be making forest level decisions from the perspective of individual trees. If you beleive in doing something against individual suffering, than you should do something to help an individual. Removing inheritance is a forest level decision. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meritocracy-winner-takes-all-and-class/143303.md?page=3)