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A lot of people talk about "social mobility," but I think we need to define terms. The way they talk, they often seem to be measuring the odds that someone will rise from one of the lower quintiles to one of the higher. That's no good. It's a zero sum game. If you move from the bottom quintile to the middle quintile, that means sme other guy guy dropped two quintiles or two guys dropped one. By this definition, social mobility is kind of scary, since it means you can rise up from poverty, but you can fall down just as easily. Social stabilty starts to sound good.
I think a better understanding of social mobility is the chance to start from humble beginnings and make something of yourself. The rich may be likely to remain rich, but you can enjoy the lifestyle of those better off than you when you were born. If we're not all doing better in general, what's the point?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:11 AM
2 Comments:
Although it is certainly scary to think that you could fall quintiles, I think it is even scarier to think that one could not fall. I don't see any reason why it's beneficial to society that one good business person could ensconce his or her family in wealth for generations to come -- regardless of their own productivity.
I don't want stagnation, but a bit of stability isn't bad. (And don't forget, people in the top quintile have nowhere to go but down.) Those who get ahead (for whatever reason--genetics (which can be passed on), culture, hard work, even luck) get rewards, and one of those that drives a lot of people is being able to help their family. Radical solutions that want to wipe that out are not helping society, since they discourage people from getting ahead. (It's a lot easier to create social mobility by pulling people down than raising people up.)
What I ultimately want is a dynamic society that rewards hard work and ingenuity, so that even if some fall while others rise, in general everyone's lifestyle is improving on average. Standard measures of mobility don't really measure that.
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