David Brooks On "The Hereditary Meritocracy"

David Brooks writes on declining social mobility in the US, and warns of the "hereditary meritocracy":

That suggests that the family you were born into matters more and more to how you will fare in life. That's a problem because we are not supposed to have a hereditary class structure in this country.

But we're developing one. In the information age, education matters more. In an age in which education matters more, family matters more, because as James Coleman established decades ago, family status shapes educational achievement.

At the top end of society we have a mass upper-middle class. This is made up of highly educated people who move into highly educated neighborhoods and raise their kids in good schools with the children of other highly educated parents. These kids develop wonderful skills, get into good colleges (the median family income of a Harvard student is now $150,000), then go out and have their own children, who develop the same sorts of wonderful skills and who repeat the cycle all over again.

In this way these highly educated elites produce a paradox - a hereditary meritocratic class.

It becomes harder for middle-class kids to compete against members of the hypercharged educated class. Indeed, the middle-class areas become more socially isolated from the highly educated areas.

Mr. Brooks is too clever to call attention to this, but the "nature/nurture" debate enters into this.  If the traits that lead to success (for example, good health, good looks, high energy, and intelligence) are genetically inheritable, the children of affluence probably start with genetic advantages.  On the other hand, if success is learned by example and environment, these kids are almost certainly being raised in the right place.

In either case, one might ask, just what is the problem?  Are we really worried that smart, hard-working people are staying together and focusing on the education of their kids?  I didn't think so.  On the other hand, a gloomy implication of all this is that even better schools and less discrimination won't lead to a world where everyone's children get off to an equal start.  Well, maybe that is just aspirational, anyway.

We hashed through this a few years ago - lots of links in this old post; here is an article I saved on racial disparities in education.

MORE:  Here is the Economist article to which Mr. Brooks refers; here is an Alan Krueger piece in the 2002 NY Times.  Since Prof. Krueger approvingly cites an article by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, I will toss in this related article by them.

Some members of the Alternative-Reality Based Community may be shocked at the notion that there is a genetic component to success, so I will include these snippets from Bowles and Gintis:

No one doubts that the children of well-off parents may tend to receive more and better schooling and benefit from material, cultural, and genetic inheritances...

On the basis of these and other empirical regularities, the intergenerational transmission of economic status is generally thought to reflect the combined effects of the genetic and cultural transmission of traits, such as cognitive functioning, that contribute to economic success, as well as the inheritance of income-enhancing group memberships and property.

OK, Mr. Brooks sidestepped it, but is this really so controversial?

UNRELENTING:  Fellow blogger Jim Hu gives us food for thought with his post.  My quick response - I agree with his description of the things that we agree on, and will have to reflect a bit to see whether I disagree with the things he says we disagree on.  My suspicion is that he is making a very good point about the slow pace of speciation, and I certainly hope he is right.

Comments

[joe]

$150k. I never knew that. It sure takes a lot to send your kids to such a promising school.

[Neo]

He must have been hurting for something to latch onto this topic.

Moral of story: if you want to be rich, you need to do the same things that make rich people rich

[Robert Speirs]

I find it difficult to believe that high-IQ poor kids don't have the opportunity to do just as well as their richer peers. The great shift of high-IQ workers into the upper classes in the Twentieth Century described in the Bell Curve happened before any "affirmative action" or other government programs were available.

[meep]

How odd. Especially as I remember reading an article recently about how today's CEOs are a more diverse lot... less likely to have gone to the "big name schools", for one, and having disparate backgrounds. Heck, look at Bush's choices for Cabinet positions, and John Edwards's own life story.

There's still plenty of social mobility to be had. In my own family, my father went from small-town South Carolina to do well for himself as an engineer at IBM. I've got relatives who live in trailer parks and who manage convenience stores, and relatives who live in Westchester and Connecticut, who are executives in media and banking. It's true that those from rich families are unlikely to ever become destitute and those from the poor ends are unlikely to become rich, but even among my blood relatives I see quite a range of economic and educational achievement... and we all share similar backgrounds and connections.

Of course, my family benefitted from having decent public schooling (and merit-based scholarships for college). It is true that it seems public schools have deteriorated in quality, for whatever reason, and in that sense, having a family life that values learning can help one get ahead. But it's still relatively easy for middle class kids to compete with the rich kids, especially in the business world.

I'm not sure what this "social capital" is supposed to be, and how one is supposed to spread it around. Is he asking that moral values be imposed upon the populace? (Like: work hard, study, don't have sex before marriage, don't drink alcohol, etc.) Unfortunately, all that has been purged from the public school system. Aw, too bad. What the heck does Brooks have in mind?

[Calvin]

Neo, I think you miss the point...the key thing rich people do to become rich is to be born into rich families.

And Robert, I think the Bell Curve has been thorougly refuted. (see Stephen Jay Gould's book for one). Also, how many high IQ kids with good grades didn't get into Harvard Business school because a future leader of the world with a C- average got in, due to the family he was born into?

[Jim Hu]

Calvin,

One? I can't think of more than one.

But I agree with you about the Bell Curve, and if you meant to show discomfort with the uncritical embrace of creeping Social Darwinism in Tom's post, I agree with that too. At least Brooks does not make the jump to genetic advantages as an explanation that so many conservatives want to make in the wake of the Summers brouhaha. Unfortunately, Tom does.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Who would have thought that The Donald would be in the forefront of the fight for social mobility:

http://flyunderthebridge.blogspot.com/2005/01/winning-one-for-whopper.html

[TM]

Jim, on the subject of genetic advantages, I am just passing along the gist of some of the papers I strolled through.

Or are you seriously arguing that things like good health and good looks are (a) not partly hereditary, or (b) not correlated with lifetime success?

[Bill Arnold]

I'm at least partly with TM on this. If we were all genetically identical (ok, i'll allow for male and female clones :-) then nurture would be all. But there is genetic variation among humans; not as much as we see in many other species, but enough to confer relative advantages and disadvantages in various aspects of life. It's wise to be extremely careful with (and critical of, when appropriate) research in this area but unwise to completely reject such research.

[Jim Hu]

TM,

I'm arguing that hereditary ≠ genetic. Although there are clearly genetic components to just about everything in human biology, the strong genetic effects are relatively rare (e.g. genetic diseases) and the contribution of genetics to large classes of attributes like talent, health, looks is complex (see the NYT piece for the state of the science wrt Summers' statements). Moreover, unlike sex, where XX and XY genotypes distinguish men and women, the success genes, if they exist, are unlikely to have sorted genotypes by class over the time period examined where the article cited by the Economist claims that mobility changed. I simply don't believe that the success genes would be distributed across social classes in the period from WWII to 1978, and then the success genes got massively enriched between 1978 and 2002 ...we aren't inbred like the old European aristocracies, and that inbreeding reduced fitness more than it helped. Even if we were doing totalitarian eugenics, it would take longer to change the allele frequencies.

Genetic variation undoubtedly explains lots of variance within social classes and some between social classes, but I believe there is a huge environmental contribution to health, looks, and ability...and all of these are helped by having money. All are affected by nutrition, quality of health care and so on. Plastic surgery, orthodontics, contact lenses (or laser surgery) better clothes, and safe places to exercise can all affect looks, and none of these are genetic. Just compare regular American dentistry to European (shudder).

There is also the matter of there being a much simpler explanation for the change: the pernicous effects of the Great Society programs. The change in mobility, if real, corresponds suspiciously with the years when we had the strongest tendency to pay people in the lowest quintiles to stay there.

Sorry for the length. I'll have to think about this more and perhaps I'll post a more thought out version of this on my own blog. If I do, you'll get a trackback ping.

[Cecil Turner]

"And Robert, I think the Bell Curve has been thorougly refuted. (see Stephen Jay Gould's book for one)."

Ah, The Mismeasure of Man . . . not without its own negative reviews:

The new version -- described by the publisher as ``an acclaimed classic that refutes the conclusions of The Bell Curve'' -- is expanded but hardly revised. It regurgitates character assassinations of deceased scientists, misrepresents their work despite published refutation, and studiously withholds 15 years of new research that contradicts every major scientific argument Gould puts forth. [emphasis added]

Gould's initial comments on The Bell Curve persuaded 52 experts in the field to generate what amounted to a spirited defense in their "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" statement:

"Since the publication of "The Bell Curve," many commentators have offered opinions about human intelligence that misstate current scientific evidence. Some conclusions dismissed in the media as discredited are actually firmly supported . . .The following conclusions are fully described in the major textbooks, professional journals and encyclopedias in intelligence."

"2. Intelligence, so defined, can be measured, and intelligence tests measure it well . . ."

"5. Intelligence tests are not culturally biased . . ."

"14. Individuals differ in intelligence due to differences in both their environments and genetic heritage. Heritability estimates range from 0.4 to 0.8 (on a scale from 0 to 1), most thereby indicating that genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ differences among individuals."

Not sure what research you gents are reading, but I'd suggest the possibility is still open.

[Foobarista]

Part of me wonders if the entire income grid hasn't shifted "to the right" - possibly with the farthest part moving 'way to the right. What it takes to be super-rich simply takes far more resources than it once did, so it's pretty tough to get there from a "cold start" - which would have the effect of statistically reducing upward mobility.

I remember a Washington Post article that talked about the "middle-class squeeze" a few months ago that had this problem: the number of people in the middle class according to the article's definitions had shrank, but what was obvious when you looked at the chart was that people had moved _upward_ into the "upper-middle" definition, hozing the article's implicit premise that people were getting poorer. What was obvious was that what was once "middle" is now statistically "lower middle".

As for "nature versus nurture": I can't see how anything "actionable" can be gained from the debate even if anything could be conclusively proved after taking into account a zillion factors like culture, pre-natal care differences, etc - which I doubt. I'm happier just sticking to the self-evident truth that all men (and women) are created equal :)

[TM]

From Jim:

Genetic variation undoubtedly explains lots of variance within social classes and some between social classes, but I believe there is a huge environmental contribution to health, looks, and ability...and all of these are helped by having money.

I defy you to find anyone who disagrees with you on the matter of environmental contribution. But just because environment mattters, it does not follow that genes do not.

As to genetics not changing enough to explain the recent surge in income inequality, that strikes me as a strawman. For example, one explanation of the rise in income inequality is an increase in the value of a college education. If "college-educability" was exactly as heritable in the 50's as in the 80's, and genes did not change at all, we would still see an increase in the heritability of success as that particular "college-educability" trait becomes more valuable.

Or, to take another example, the heritabilty of extreme height probably has not changed over the years. However, with the rise of the NBA, the value of inheriting great height has gone up.

Anyway, I await your ping - this blog lives for shameless self-promotion.

[Joe Mealyus]

"What it takes to be super-rich simply takes far more resources than it once did...."

Huh? Mark Cuban? Bill Gates? Paul Allen? Maybe I'm not so up on the specifics of their backgrounds, but doesn't the last 30 years or so of US history suggest that if you want to be super-rich, "resources" is not your obstacle?

[Aaron]

Without the assumption of a genetic component or really, really emphasizing the nurture part, the argument is silly, silly, silly.

Does anyone really think that a dolt born in a rich family can be "hyper educated" enough to defeat a smart motivated lower class person in today's system? Sure, with European nobility, the dolt would definitely have the advantage over the brilliant peasant, but not nowadays. I don't think Harvard is the only decent school - and Berkeley, MIT, and UCLA don't give many spaces to legacies.

So, he has to assume that the kid in question is pretty smart to begin with - and probably from genes...the fact that the kid has a great environment is DUE TO MERITOCRACY itself...which by definition will allow a kid with a less benign environment to shine as well.

[Joe Mealyus]

By the way, how many people who post to weblogs would not be members of the "heriditary meritocratic class" Brooks posits? And how many people like to admit, even to themselves, that weren't in essence self-made persons? I'm thinking that on your typical web discussion, it will be agreed that it's the silver-spoon folks who have the real advantages, and the fact of Mom and/or Dad's graduate degrees is not significant.

[Aaron]

On a separate note, I bet we can correlate a decline in social mobility with an increase in high school guidance counseling. "Do anything you want!" (is that guidance?)

No mention of paying the bills later on in life.

We should fire them all.

[Aaron]

Joe,

I'm not self made. The government gave me a full ride scholarship through UC San Diego - the scholarship was due to merit, but the full ride was because my family was from a poor background.

I really can't buy this theory.

[Aaron]

Another consideration would be that in today's world, it is much harder to squander your inherited fortune.

The lawyers and finance people have set up the trusts, they have invested it wisely (okay, not all the time) but you get the idea.

Not to mention the rise of limited liability.

[Foobarista]

The tricky thing with "meritocracy" is that it isn't just "smart kids in school". Richer/more educated advantages start with better pre-natal care, and continue with stuff like more complex and stimulating discussions at home, visits to museums and other enrichment at an early age, getting into the expensive "feeder" preschools that channel to the competitive elementary schools, onto the top high schools where all kids are expected to go to an Ivy. When it comes time to apply to university, richer parents hire admissions consultants and send their kids to SAT cram schools.

Poor but truly determined parents may provide their kids with some of this (and some do, particularly immigrants), but many of the "historically poor" simply won't know to do this stuff. It is their kids who will have a hard doing the classic "meritocratic" route - and in this case only the seriously hard-working, smart, and rather lucky kids (ie, those who avoid gangs, etc) will make it.

Fortunately, the meritocracy is open enough that you can still do well without an Ivy League education and all the trimmings.

[Les Nessman]

Well, maybe this will all work out on it's own.
There seems to be a trend of rich, successful people to have no kids, or very few, or to adopt.

[Robert Schwartz]

Nice idea. Complete crap. First. Many parents in the Meritocracy do a very poor job of raising their kids. Even if they get Jason and Jenifer into Princeton, odds are that he/she will be a complete basket case/drug addict by the time they get out.

Second. A degree from H/Y/P/Old Siwash means shineohlah. A few kids (very few, mostly children of Korean imigrants) get degrees in physics or math. Most of them get degrees in psychology or American history. Do you know what that means? That means that they have spent four years absorbing and regurgitating multiculturalism, post-modernism, critical theory and whatever else the cat drug in, and you have spent $150K.

Remember the state run Land Grant engineering schools in the Big Ten outrank the Ivy Leauge and are cheaper, even if you are not a state resident. And there is no multiculturalism in engineering.

Third. Do the math. About four million kids are born in this country every year. The top one percent of those kids, the ones who should be at the top of every class and test, will be 40,000 kids. That is a lot. The fact is that 1. There is no reliable way to identify them all. Boys, especially, can mature late. 2. the "top colleges" do not have nearly enough seats* for all of them, and this is the really hard part, 3. life is not an IQ test, the world needs and will reward qualities other than academic intelligence.

*Truth is that most of the Ivies and smaller liberal arts colleges fill about half or more of their classes with: legacies, development cases (children of donors), athletes, affirmative action cases. Getting in on pure academic ability is very tough.

OTOH remember what they are going to fill those children's minds with. Not getting in isn't so bad either.

I could go on, but my advice is short the IVY leauge and go long on psychotherapy.

[Foobarista]

Frankly, the rich kid that gets the Ivy degree in history or some other liberal field is likely to make more money than someone who majors in engineering or science - because they will probably go to law school or some other professional school. Also, they probably spent their time partying and making useful connections, while the engineering major was in the lab. Even a really good engineer or scientist will rarely make as much as a mediocre Ivy lawyer. It's annoying as hell, but true...

(And I say this as a math major from Berkeley who does embedded software for a living. It's quite a good living, but it ain't Wall Street.)

[Meep]

I'm still trying to figure out what's actionable here.

I mean, this is Brooks, so his purpose is probably just to note some trend. I saw the throwaway line about how the government is supposed to do something about this, but I'm not sure what he has in mind. In my own extended family, we've seen that those who stay in school, get a degree in something useful (accounting, math, whatever), don't abuse drugs, don't get involved in screwed-up relationships, don't shirk work, don't get in major debt, etc. tend to do well for themselves. I really don't see that the government can offer much in these realms. They've been nagging at us from the public schools and public service announcements on TV for decades -- has this helped any?

As one person remarked above, the worst thing the govt ever did was give people money for not fixing up their lives -- a pretty big disincentive to moving on up, to be sure. The best thing the government could probably do is stop being nanny, and leave people alone. There's too much subsidization of college education, for example -- too many people are lured into college without being prepared for it, and end up with debt and no degree. Or a totally useless degree. The government subsidization makes it easier for colleges to raise tuition and to lower admission standards. Here's another idea: make the public schools accountable -- there's some work being done here, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

But in the end, it's going to be up to non-governmental forces.

[Calvin]

An article last month in The Economist was on the same subject (social mobility), with the interesting observationthat Howard Dean's grandmother was a friend of Bush's grandmother--it still being a small elite world that many of our leaders and politicians come from.

[Forbes]

David Brooks is increasingly becoming a parody of that which he mocks. He's become a resident of the NY/DC cocoon that he lives in--and increasingly sounds like the libs at the NYTimes and the Democratic party.

Just as in his red state/blue state invention, and Bobos in Paradise, his research methodology is based on anecdote. Makes for interesting discussion, but not much conclusive, as the discussion herein suggests--except perhaps on some very narrow points. (Red state/blue state is just the morphing of the age-old criticism of the Liberal Eastern Establishment that grew up in the wake of population migration to the south and west. That's not insight, it's observational.)

Reality defies Brooks' argument. By his reckoning, the graduates of Greenwich (CT) High School, and all the tony Manhattan prep schools (among others), would all be attending the Ivies (and other top colleges), as these are the highly educated and their neighborhoods--and by definition, would comprise our "hereditary meritocatic class," and by extention, would control everything.

But of course we know this to be far, far, from the case.

[Jim Hu]

shameless self-promotion alert. It took me a while to digest the Bowles and Gintis paper you linked to in the update. It seemed like it warranted reading, as it contains data and models. Anyway, I'd be interested in your feedback. I don't have comments on in my own blog, so I do appreciate your hospitality to other views here.

Best,

Jim

[TM]

Very interesting response by Jim, which I will not attempt to summarize. My quick reaction is that I hope he is right, and worry that he is wrong.

[RJ]

I wish I could remember the source, but I read a paper several years ago positing that equality of outcomes, equality of opportunity, and family are mutually exclusive to a certain extent. You can have any two of the three, but not all three at once. The crux is that family throws a wrench into things because different families impart different advantages or disadvantages. Brooks' article is pushing the Equality of Opportunity + Family kills Equality of Outcomes angle.

The paper's reasoning leaves out the Nature angle of family and considers only the Nurture aspect. If you lean towards the Nature side of the argument, it's a short step to arguing that Family (Genetics) is incompatible with Equality of Opportunity.

[Cecil Turner]

"OK, Mr. Brooks sidestepped it, but is this really so controversial?"

If so, I sure can't see it. The relative advantages of nature vs nurture are certainly debatable--disputing that both are factors is not.

Jim,
"Even if we were doing totalitarian eugenics, it would take longer to change the allele frequencies."

If you're assuming changes in allele frequencies are due to changes in genetic characteristics, you'd certainly be right. But grouping will also be caused by movment of those with favorable alleles into whatever strata their attributes will support--which should subsequently also have some correlation to genetics. And, as TM points up, merely increasing the social value of an attribute will speed up the process.

"Early in their time in the US, it was considered obvious that Chinese and eastern european Jews were considered to be genetically inferior. Cultural resources allowed them to change their circumstances, not hidden genetic advantages."

I'd find that a much more convincing argument if the Chinese and Jews didn't have "hidden genetic advantages." Research suggests they do, and a group rise in SES supports, rather than disproves, the theory.

"I'm not happy about how people have accepted the idea that Larry Summers' comments on innate differences in ability represent something scientists agree on."

Again, this would be a lot more persuasive had that been the cause of the dispute. But the fact is, in the middle of a conference designed to effect a leveling of gender in science faculty positions, the mere suggestion that part of the problem might be innate is taboo. And, as your blog correctly pointed out, the root cause is: "a decline in FAS tenure offers to women, after years of incremental but steady increase."

The unspoken assumption, of course, is that the only fair outcome is "incremental but steady increase." And that might be true. But ISTM that if the corrective action is to implement a quota-based program, the burden of proof ought properly to be on the group wanting to apply the quotas--that either actual discrimination exists, or the disparity in outcome allows for no other explanation. In that context, Summers bringing up innate differences was completely appropriate, and the resulting vapors and job threats (and Summers's spineless reaction) were silly.

[Jim Hu]

Cecil,

In reverse order:

I agree that the vapors and job threats were silly. But I thought Summers was silly too, to the extent that one can tell anything accurately from news reports. The craven apologies suggest to me that he was winging it and was making the innateness argument from "common sense"; not from a thorough review of the literature. YMMV...he might have a stronger intellectual case than I think and just be spineless.

Research suggests they do, and a group rise in SES supports, rather than disproves, the theory.

A group rise suggests something heritable, which could be genetic or cultural. So it's not determinative either way. Do you have a link that provides data for claims that someone can pull out the genetic advantages for Asians or European Jews? For other groups?

If you're assuming changes in allele frequencies are due to changes in genetic characteristics, you'd certainly be right. But grouping will also be caused by movment of those with favorable alleles into whatever strata their attributes will support--which should subsequently also have some correlation to genetics.

My understanding of the innate advantages hypothesis is that changes in allele frequency are going to be due to selection in the form of increased reproductive success in the affluent subpopulation. I'm assuming that there are lots of genes that affect success (with their effects interacting with nurture), and that we don't know enough about their genetics to formulate a quantitative model for how fast selection would significantly raise the allele frequencies in one subpopulation with the amount of intergroup breeding (including extramarital, btw) we have in the US. My intuition is that it wouldn't be significant, but I haven't modeled it, and I'm only a molecular geneticist not a population specialist so you shouldn't believe my model even if I made one. Your intuition is different.

I'm not saying that it follows that genes do not contribute. I bet they make a huge contribution to why there is variation in success within groups. I just think it's a huge leap to go from genes contribute to success to genetics makes a significant contribution to observed inequality of socioeconomic success in the 20th-21st century US. It's an even bigger leap to say that this is only controversial because it's non-PC. I don't think you or TM are saying exactly that, but it's the flavor of much of the coverage, IMHO.

I also think that if Summers had said "Perhaps there is an innate, genetic, propensity for white male elites to discriminate against those who are genetically most different from themselves based on discernable phenotypes - looks, smell, pheromones" it would have been just as plausible (or implausible from my side), but the outrage would have been on the other side.

[Cecil Turner]

"The craven apologies suggest to me that he was winging it and was making the innateness argument from "common sense"; not from a thorough review of the literature."

I agree, but so what? Are those concerned with a decline in FAS tenure offers to women providing evidence the trend is based on something other than innate differences, or relying on common sense? I suspect it's the latter. Again, it's not clear to me where the burden of proof belongs; merely asking the question (if that's in fact what happened) certainly ought not to be out of bounds.

"A group rise suggests something heritable, which could be genetic or cultural. So it's not determinative either way."

Nope. But considering "the bell curves for [Jews and East Asians] are centered somewhat higher than for whites in general," and both genetics and cultural differences appear to be significant factors in determining intelligence, it is "suggestive," which is what I claimed.

"My understanding of the innate advantages hypothesis is that changes in allele frequency are going to be due to selection in the form of increased reproductive success in the affluent subpopulation."

If so, my intuition matches yours: it can't happen that fast. But if we're concerned about social stratification, that's also unnecessary. Merely grouping those with similar genetic makeups (if that in fact is the main factor) will cause the same result.

"I'm only a molecular geneticist not a population specialist so you shouldn't believe my model even if I made one."

Hey, I'm just a retired Jarhead. So unless there's a bonus for hitting what you aim at, I suspect your model would be more persuasive than mine.

"I just think it's a huge leap to go from genes contribute to success to genetics makes a significant contribution to observed inequality of socioeconomic success in the 20th-21st century US."

I don't see why. If society places a high enough value on some genetic trait (e.g., if we were paid based on height) then SES groupings would tend to parallel the genetics. Nor do I see anything particularly outrageous in the subject.

And again, if we're going to rectify perceived differences in opportunity by providing quotas (or "incentives," or "goals," or whatever), then we probably ought to start by figuring out where the appropriate end state is (e.g., if 90% of the researchers in a particular field happen to be men, maybe 90% of the tenured professors also ought to be). Or, better yet, decide it's just too hard to quantify, and insist that any measure to redress discrimination be linked to some actual discrimination.

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