Nice one. One would expect the long-term persistence of eliteness to depend on assortative mating. Otherwise, many descendants of the elite should regress to the mean over generations.
Yes, you're right. Greg Clark's work shows that elite families do regress to the mean — but at much lower rates than conventional measures of social mobility imply.
Were the Japanese who were interned any more intelligent than those who were not? One inadvertent benefit of being interned might have been access to a large circle of contacts who would be inclined to help each other post-war, due to the trauma of their shared experience.
Yes, that's one of the mechanisms the author puts forward. He suggests that because internees had a high average level of human capital, and because they lived in close proximity with one another, those who were initially less skilled were able to boost their human capital through exchanges of skills and information.
Noah, interesting article. Intelligence certainly plays a vital role in success. But other traits are at play. One very important trait (though not one I admire) is the inordinate quest for wealth and power. In other words, rapaciousness and megalomania. History is replete with examples of the not-so-bright amassing immense wealth and power, and those of genius quality living rather average monetary lives. One example of this is Trump and Einstein. Perhaps this trait should be referred to as 'goal determination'; the direction can be self-serving or the pursuit of knowledge.
Why do societies trumpet social mobility as a 'good thing'? Is it because it indicates that meritocracy is working as it should, allowing previously disadvantaged but talented individuals to achieve their true potential, or because in our egalitarian societies we feel everyone should have a turn at being on top, no matter how unintelligent or incapable they are?
It's not so much that 'meritocracy is working as it should' but that a lack of social mobility is an indication that something else is terribly wrong with your society. Extreme poverty, extreme hunger, an extremely rigid social hierarchy where the top class is successfully denying entry to others, or a totalitarianism of the state where everybody is a peasant or a worker and the state owns all -- all of these sorts of societies are bad for everybody who lives in them, elites included, not only the 'disadvantaged but talented'.
"Extreme poverty, extreme hunger, an extremely rigid social hierarchy where the top class is successfully denying entry to others, or a totalitarianism of the state where everybody is a peasant or a worker and the state owns all -- all of these sorts of societies are bad for everybody who lives in them, elites included, not only the 'disadvantaged but talented'."
It sounds to me like you are describing an aristocracy or plutocracy. That is nothing like a meritocracy. The United States is moving toward a plutocracy, to be exact, a plutocratic oligarchy.
I actually haven't witnessed either extreme poverty or extreme hunger in western societies. What I have witnessed is a collapse of morals and self-dignity, partly due to drink, drugs and an excessively generous welfare system.
The places where I have seen genuine poverty rather than the self-inflicted kind are places like Africa, where poverty is perhaps less due to a lack of social mobility and more due to poverty being the natural human state, a state western countries somehow managed to escape from. There is not much point having social mobility when there is no infrastructure present for those talented individuals to show what they can do.
In the past there was very little social mobility in, say, Britain but I wouldn't say that British society in those days was any more 'wrong' than it is today. Alexis de Tocqueville might even say that it is because of the expectation of social mobility that many westerners today suffer from a chronic dissatisfaction with their lot.
The part that you mention that I agree with was 'an extremely rigid social hierarchy where the top class is successfully denying entry to others', which surely is making my point about talented but disadvantaged individuals not being allowed to fulfill their full potential i.e. meritocracy working as it should.
Sorry to be unclear. My position isn't based on any idea that meritocracy is 'working as it should'. The Confucian Elites in China were 100% all in favour of meritocracy, which is why they had competitive exams for nearly all parts of the bureaucracy, and extensive rules against nepotism and 'feathering of one's own
nest'. Various communist regimes have thought that a scientific society would be best run if children were given aptitiude tests and then funnelled into trades and careers that made the best use of their full potential. In fiction we have _Brave New World_ proposing a static social order where conditioning and drugs are used to keep the strivers from striving. But from my point of view, even if such systems did a very good (though imperfect) job of making sure that talented but disadvantaged individuals fulfilled their full potential, I would still oppose them because they are hostile to human freedom.
You weren't unclear. I realised that you weren't claiming that that merictocracy was working as it should. I also know that meritocracy was initially a negative term (Toby Young's dad), mainly because it was a rough deal for those who have no merit.
Even so, all systems have their negative points and I would much rather live in society where the able run things than letting the incapable run things, just to be nice.
I believe there can be both freedom and meritocracy. If nowadays a blacksmith's son wants to become a merchant banker there is nothing stopping him becoming one, unlike in the past. And unlike in Brave New World, we aren't trained from the womb to become what society wants us to be. In fact, I can't really imagine how much more freedom we could possibly have in the west, unless one considers not living forever or being able to fly a lack of freedom.
"Even so, all systems have their negative points and I would much rather live in society where the able run things than letting the incapable run things, just to be nice.
I believe there can be both freedom and meritocracy. If nowadays a blacksmith's son wants to become a merchant banker there is nothing stopping him becoming one, unlike in the past."
Absolutely so. A meritocratic system does not preclude freedom.
Fair points, though the surviving descendants of Europe's Jewish elites are probably doing pretty well in the US and Israel (and those parts of Europe they still inhabit).
One anecdote I have is about Prague elite Jews. My friend's father was in Terzin and managed to survive. He came to America with nothing and became a successful businessman.
His 3 sons are a music producer, an Ivy league tenured solid state physicist and an obstetrician.
Really interesting. Perhaps we can amass enough evidence to persuade the elites that humans aren't blank slates after all, just as Nathan Cofnas urges us to do.
And I HAVE heard of Magadan. I have read (twice) Lionel Davidson's thriller 'Kominsky Heights' and I seem to remember that Magadan features in 'Kolyma Tales' by Varlam Shalamov.
Certainly not travelled. I wouldn't dream of going near the place, though I think I must have flown over it on my way to Japan. But you can't even look down at the dotted lights of sparesly-inhabited Siberia any more since the war with Ukraine. Once the pilot, rather than fly east from Heathrow to Japan, decided it would be quicker to go the other way, via America. (Well, perhaps it wasn't the pilot himself who decided).
And I probably haven't read more than you, though I might have read more fiction. I am unable to read non-fiction books to the end. Somehow I need the suspense of not knowing what comes next to keep me reading and I already know how the story of Copernicus and Galileo ends.
Hereditarian thinking was the norm before the Great Brainwashing post 1945. If the brainwashing stopped, we’d be back to normal in 1-2 generations. We are already on the way thanks to the glaring consequences of third-world immigration.
It would be nice if we could get back to where we were. Not only was the normal person's view more in touch with reality, we also didn't have all the weeping and wailing of crocodile tears over society's alleged victims. This whole charade of people pretending they care so much about others just gets on my nerves, especially when no wrong or injustice has happened in the first place. To me it all looks like a vanity project that has got out of control.
Your last example (interned Japanese Americans) does not tell that interned Japanese were overwhelmingy recruited from "elite" Japanese Americans. For all we know, rich and connected ones might have avoided internment. Also in Soviet and especially Chinese example too short a time, too few generations,passed to tell elite got wealth back because of genes. It is possible rich Chinese in 1949 were the only ones to have gotten good education, nourishment....their brains were more developed because of this "nurture, not nature". They were able to help and raise their children better, instill right attitudes- now their children (next generation) might have exploited market reforms which started already in 1980ies....
Fair points. Regarding Japanese internment, I mentioned it as an example because Japanese Americans today are an elite group (with well above average incomes). But if they were a non-elite group, the left would surely blame their lack of success on the "legacy of internment".
Jesus famously said that the poor are with us always. Apparently the same is true of elites.
Nice one. One would expect the long-term persistence of eliteness to depend on assortative mating. Otherwise, many descendants of the elite should regress to the mean over generations.
Cremieux recently had a nice presentation on a related topic (social mobility) https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/intelligence-and-social-mobility
Yes, you're right. Greg Clark's work shows that elite families do regress to the mean — but at much lower rates than conventional measures of social mobility imply.
—NC
Were the Japanese who were interned any more intelligent than those who were not? One inadvertent benefit of being interned might have been access to a large circle of contacts who would be inclined to help each other post-war, due to the trauma of their shared experience.
Yes, that's one of the mechanisms the author puts forward. He suggests that because internees had a high average level of human capital, and because they lived in close proximity with one another, those who were initially less skilled were able to boost their human capital through exchanges of skills and information.
—NC
Noah, interesting article. Intelligence certainly plays a vital role in success. But other traits are at play. One very important trait (though not one I admire) is the inordinate quest for wealth and power. In other words, rapaciousness and megalomania. History is replete with examples of the not-so-bright amassing immense wealth and power, and those of genius quality living rather average monetary lives. One example of this is Trump and Einstein. Perhaps this trait should be referred to as 'goal determination'; the direction can be self-serving or the pursuit of knowledge.
Good point — that trait certainly does matter.
—NC
Why do societies trumpet social mobility as a 'good thing'? Is it because it indicates that meritocracy is working as it should, allowing previously disadvantaged but talented individuals to achieve their true potential, or because in our egalitarian societies we feel everyone should have a turn at being on top, no matter how unintelligent or incapable they are?
Good question. I suspect both reasons matter.
—NC
It's not so much that 'meritocracy is working as it should' but that a lack of social mobility is an indication that something else is terribly wrong with your society. Extreme poverty, extreme hunger, an extremely rigid social hierarchy where the top class is successfully denying entry to others, or a totalitarianism of the state where everybody is a peasant or a worker and the state owns all -- all of these sorts of societies are bad for everybody who lives in them, elites included, not only the 'disadvantaged but talented'.
"Extreme poverty, extreme hunger, an extremely rigid social hierarchy where the top class is successfully denying entry to others, or a totalitarianism of the state where everybody is a peasant or a worker and the state owns all -- all of these sorts of societies are bad for everybody who lives in them, elites included, not only the 'disadvantaged but talented'."
It sounds to me like you are describing an aristocracy or plutocracy. That is nothing like a meritocracy. The United States is moving toward a plutocracy, to be exact, a plutocratic oligarchy.
I actually haven't witnessed either extreme poverty or extreme hunger in western societies. What I have witnessed is a collapse of morals and self-dignity, partly due to drink, drugs and an excessively generous welfare system.
The places where I have seen genuine poverty rather than the self-inflicted kind are places like Africa, where poverty is perhaps less due to a lack of social mobility and more due to poverty being the natural human state, a state western countries somehow managed to escape from. There is not much point having social mobility when there is no infrastructure present for those talented individuals to show what they can do.
In the past there was very little social mobility in, say, Britain but I wouldn't say that British society in those days was any more 'wrong' than it is today. Alexis de Tocqueville might even say that it is because of the expectation of social mobility that many westerners today suffer from a chronic dissatisfaction with their lot.
The part that you mention that I agree with was 'an extremely rigid social hierarchy where the top class is successfully denying entry to others', which surely is making my point about talented but disadvantaged individuals not being allowed to fulfill their full potential i.e. meritocracy working as it should.
Sorry to be unclear. My position isn't based on any idea that meritocracy is 'working as it should'. The Confucian Elites in China were 100% all in favour of meritocracy, which is why they had competitive exams for nearly all parts of the bureaucracy, and extensive rules against nepotism and 'feathering of one's own
nest'. Various communist regimes have thought that a scientific society would be best run if children were given aptitiude tests and then funnelled into trades and careers that made the best use of their full potential. In fiction we have _Brave New World_ proposing a static social order where conditioning and drugs are used to keep the strivers from striving. But from my point of view, even if such systems did a very good (though imperfect) job of making sure that talented but disadvantaged individuals fulfilled their full potential, I would still oppose them because they are hostile to human freedom.
Hi Laura,
You weren't unclear. I realised that you weren't claiming that that merictocracy was working as it should. I also know that meritocracy was initially a negative term (Toby Young's dad), mainly because it was a rough deal for those who have no merit.
Even so, all systems have their negative points and I would much rather live in society where the able run things than letting the incapable run things, just to be nice.
I believe there can be both freedom and meritocracy. If nowadays a blacksmith's son wants to become a merchant banker there is nothing stopping him becoming one, unlike in the past. And unlike in Brave New World, we aren't trained from the womb to become what society wants us to be. In fact, I can't really imagine how much more freedom we could possibly have in the west, unless one considers not living forever or being able to fly a lack of freedom.
"Even so, all systems have their negative points and I would much rather live in society where the able run things than letting the incapable run things, just to be nice.
I believe there can be both freedom and meritocracy. If nowadays a blacksmith's son wants to become a merchant banker there is nothing stopping him becoming one, unlike in the past."
Absolutely so. A meritocratic system does not preclude freedom.
Are the Stravinskys and Nabokovs still making St. Petersburg a capital of avant-garde culture?
How is Vienna's famous Jewish elite of 1867-1938 doing lately? Budapest's?
Fair points, though the surviving descendants of Europe's Jewish elites are probably doing pretty well in the US and Israel (and those parts of Europe they still inhabit).
—NC
One anecdote I have is about Prague elite Jews. My friend's father was in Terzin and managed to survive. He came to America with nothing and became a successful businessman.
His 3 sons are a music producer, an Ivy league tenured solid state physicist and an obstetrician.
“Magadan (a small town in Siberia you’ve never heard of)”
Wait, what? Surely of all the small towns in Siberia, Magadan is one of the _most_ famous?
You're the second person that's heard of Magadan. I guess I'm not very well-read/well-travelled xD
—NC
Really interesting. Perhaps we can amass enough evidence to persuade the elites that humans aren't blank slates after all, just as Nathan Cofnas urges us to do.
And I HAVE heard of Magadan. I have read (twice) Lionel Davidson's thriller 'Kominsky Heights' and I seem to remember that Magadan features in 'Kolyma Tales' by Varlam Shalamov.
You've obviously travelled or read more than me — I'd never heard of it.
—NC
Certainly not travelled. I wouldn't dream of going near the place, though I think I must have flown over it on my way to Japan. But you can't even look down at the dotted lights of sparesly-inhabited Siberia any more since the war with Ukraine. Once the pilot, rather than fly east from Heathrow to Japan, decided it would be quicker to go the other way, via America. (Well, perhaps it wasn't the pilot himself who decided).
And I probably haven't read more than you, though I might have read more fiction. I am unable to read non-fiction books to the end. Somehow I need the suspense of not knowing what comes next to keep me reading and I already know how the story of Copernicus and Galileo ends.
Hereditarian thinking was the norm before the Great Brainwashing post 1945. If the brainwashing stopped, we’d be back to normal in 1-2 generations. We are already on the way thanks to the glaring consequences of third-world immigration.
It would be nice if we could get back to where we were. Not only was the normal person's view more in touch with reality, we also didn't have all the weeping and wailing of crocodile tears over society's alleged victims. This whole charade of people pretending they care so much about others just gets on my nerves, especially when no wrong or injustice has happened in the first place. To me it all looks like a vanity project that has got out of control.
typo "the share of output accounted for private firms by dropped from"
Thanks — fixed.
—NC
Your last example (interned Japanese Americans) does not tell that interned Japanese were overwhelmingy recruited from "elite" Japanese Americans. For all we know, rich and connected ones might have avoided internment. Also in Soviet and especially Chinese example too short a time, too few generations,passed to tell elite got wealth back because of genes. It is possible rich Chinese in 1949 were the only ones to have gotten good education, nourishment....their brains were more developed because of this "nurture, not nature". They were able to help and raise their children better, instill right attitudes- now their children (next generation) might have exploited market reforms which started already in 1980ies....
Fair points. Regarding Japanese internment, I mentioned it as an example because Japanese Americans today are an elite group (with well above average incomes). But if they were a non-elite group, the left would surely blame their lack of success on the "legacy of internment".
—NC
"These were individuals born between 1940 and 1965, who were aged 70–85 at the time of the survey."
If they were born in 1965 they're only 60 in 2025.