Forum Post: consider this

These are the facts about the USA:

stats from 1998: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_03.html

• Statistics show that people generally stay in their social class • ie: if you are born poor you stay poor, if you are born rich you stay rich • It is not hard to argue that the rich clearly get more benefit than the poor (ie: more desirable to be rich than poor) • Also that the majority of people are poor (defined as: 80% of population makes less than $60,000 a year)

If you agree with those stats, these are your options for the reason why you believe people do not move up and down in their social classes:

1. Rich people pass down superior genetics to their children and poor people pass down inferior genetics to their children therefore keeping the class breakdown the same

2. Somehow by chance rich parents were all given extremely gifted children who no matter who they were born to would have become rich. (Coincidence that all poor people seem to have un intelligent, lazy kids)

3. Society is “set up” to keep people in their “class” (also important to point out: this does not benefit the majority of people as most people are poor)

If you believe #3 than you have these options as your point of view:

I. That’s ok with me I was born into money which means I am most likely going to stay rich. Sucks for everyone else not my problem/ if you are poor it would be: Sucks to be poor because of a un equal society, oh well that’s how it is.

II. Ok so people are born rich, they got lucky. Everyone still has a chance to become rich and make their own luck if they work hard (if your parents makes less than 60k a year you have a 7.4% “chance” to make more than them)

III. Maybe society shouldn’t be harsh onto people whose only fault was to be born to parents who happen to be poor (especially when it is the MAJORITY of people who happen to have made this critical “mistake”)

• If you were to offer someone at birth two options:

Option 1: be born to parents in a society where everyone is relatively equal and how well you do is based on you and how hard/smart you work not your parent’s income (in this society statistics would back this up ie: lots of “class” movement; which is the opposite of what we have now)

Option 2(What happens now):

a random number generator picks a “number” and you are then born to parents who are in that percentile of wealth in our current society. (80% chance you pick a number where the family makes less than 60,000 a year: you have a 7.4% “chance” to make more than them, remember $70k a year is more than them it isn’t a 7.4% to make a million a year, you have a statistically insignificantly chance of making that)

WARNING: choosing this option because you think you are a “hard worker and could work your way into riches” aka “beat” the statistics and everyone else, keep in mind that 80% of people think they are above average humans and your chances to make more than a million a year are statically insignificant.

Which would you chose?