Spreading the Wealth

A recent article in the Atlantic warns of the ‘Birth of a New American Aristocracy’.  The author defines a new 9.9 percent group, just below the formerly villainized 1 or 0.1 %ers, as the more dangerous, soon-to-be-entrenched aristocracy.  Riding just under the radar, this group has privileges that they glibly pass on to their progeny without realizing the implicit unfairness.  The so-called meritocracy of our society is a sham when examined closely, as merit can to a great extent be bought or ensured by the relative advantages of birth, neighborhood, school system, marriage, race and other factors outside the reach of human striving.

The article is well written and thought provoking.  However, it offers little in the way of antidotes to the poison of an entrenched aristocracy.  It seems to suggest that the best way to avoid a long-term disaster of radical income inequality and associated class resentment is to appeal to the individual consciences of the 9.9 percenters and hope that they will in some as-yet-to-be-defined fashion relinquish some of their many advantages. 

This is seriously naïve.  Who gives up their good fortune willingly?  What father will not ask a friend to give an interview to his daughter?  What mother will not seek out the best possible education for her son?  What aspiring professional will not seek out other aspiring professionals as life partners?  These are not criminal acts or even ethical lapses.  They are as natural as breathing and they will only be surrendered by a tiny minority of the most idealistic who have the strength of their convictions.

I advocate another means to achieve some measure of egalitarianism – spreading the wealth.  The number of capable, well-educated young people continues to grow ever higher.  In 1940 only 3.5% of the population had college degrees. Today over 35% do.  Any elite college can tell you that they receive almost identically impressive applications from many times the number of students they can enroll.  The jobs of the 9.9%ers – management consulting, physicians, law firm partners, accounting firm partners, financial firm partners, high tech executives, etc. – are a form of lottery that bestow high degrees of wealth on only a small portion of the population that could effectively occupy those positions.

The problem with today’s job and income marketplace is not that a small number of candidates achieve the ‘merit’ necessary to be successful by entrenched privileges, but rather that the highly compensated labor marketplace is too small and getting smaller!  Can anyone argue with a straight face that a law school graduate from Yale is worth the $250k/yr they are paid as an associate?  Or more importantly, that they deserve the ten-fold ratio of pay over the law school applicant who missed out on the Yale law school lottery and had to settle for a lesser school? 

There are complex and intricate reasons why our marketplace has evolved into a rich-get-richer and poor-get-poorer scenario.  But with the rapidly approaching end-of-life of so many job functions and the ever-increasing expectations of a burgeoning educated class, we must begin to analyze this trend and work to unravel the Gordian knot of wage disparity and job cartels before chaos and revolution descend upon us. 

Perhaps the first step is to encourage a much smaller work week – say 20 or 30 hours – for highly paid professionals.  This would have the effect of expanding the job market in those areas.  Of course the free market would not bend in that direction without some significant encouragement.  That must come in the form of very high marginal taxes on the upper incomes.  Would this be such a hardship?  The law firm partner who formerly made $500k and now makes $250k/yr and works 20 hours a week might just grow to appreciate this new quality of life over the rat race of his formerly lucrative but drone-like professional career.

It may seem the height of naivete to suggest such a radical change in our job market, but what other meaningful choice is there?  If, as many predict, and we are already observing, the number of well—paying jobs is decreasing, then the only real solution is to share these jobs and the associated wealth.  And the only way to do that is by some fairly potent social engineering in the form of taxation and other incentives.

Elite Schools - A Contrarian View

A recent court case concerning Harvard’s apparent attempt to limit the percentage of Asian Americans in their admission process has once again brought up the topic of how incredibly competitive elite colleges have become and how desperate parents and students are to gain admission into their exalted realm.  I think everyone is focusing on the wrong question here.

I am a product of the so-called elite colleges with degrees from Stanford, MIT and Georgia Tech.  I am well acquainted with the benefits of a degree from these institutions.  I make this disclaimer at the outset because I am going to take a contrarian view to the prevailing wisdom on this issue and I believe I am qualified to do so.

The usual argument from the media, educators and businesses when hearing anguish from students rejected from elite schools is that there are many excellent institutions of learning and that anyway, one’s career is not dictated by the school that one attends, but rather by the work that is done throughout one’s career.

There is of course some truth in these common sense platitudes.  A poor performer from Harvard will eventually be ejected from the fast track and a superstar from a good public university (or even a poor one) will over time rise to the top of his or her profession given a modicum of good timing and fortune.

But in my experience and in many years of observation, elite schools do offer an amazing advantage to their fortunate graduates.  The reasons are threefold – Brand, Cronyism and Connections.

As a Stanford graduate I have found that my resume is almost always given a second look because of the brand of the school.  People who meet me are visibly impressed when they learn that I went to Stanford or MIT.  Elite universities have spent much of their endowed billions (which, by the way, are donated in a rather incestuous cycle by their successful graduates for exactly this purpose) creating and polishing their brand so that the general public, and many potential employers, are simply in awe of them.  This is not to say that these institutions do not deserve some cachet, but I am quite certain that their brand is much more powerful than it really should be, for reasons I will point out later.

When graduates of elite universities head into the marketplace, they are able to take advantage of a uniquely American cronyism that is quite astonishing.  Consulting firms, financial firms, high tech firms, law schools, business schools and a plethora of other top opportunities are doled out by executives who are graduates of these elite schools and are typically inclined, like shadowy potentates in some secret society, to seek out their elite brethren and offer them the choicest entry points into the business world.  They justify this in the name of meritocracy, because who can argue against offering elite opportunities to elite graduates?

This cronyism is one type of networking, but the benefits of an elite pedigree do not stop there.  The multiplying effect of having both friends who have graduated with you and are now on the yellow brick road of good fortune, as well as a network of former and future graduates who have also been anointed in similar fashion, is quite stunning.  It creates an outsized impact on one’s career and perpetuates itself by giving one’s children and other loved ones similar advantages.  Who can blame you for hiring your college buddy’s daughter for that fast track position?

But it’s all ok, isn’t it?  These graduates of elite universities are the best and brightest, right?  They deserve to get the best jobs and careers.  They’ve earned it.

 

Ah, there’s the rub that makes this a calamity of such long life (if I may be forgiven a slight paraphrase)!  There are, give or take, 325 million people in the U.S.   The Ivy League schools and their equivalents throughout the country (Stanford, MIT, CalTech and a few others) can admit perhaps 20,000 students each year.  It has been noted on numerous occasions that the actual admission process for these schools is the equivalent of a lottery.  There are so many qualified applicants with amazing test scores, grades and activities that they could fill up ten times the number of so-called ‘elite’ schools and still not have enough spaces.  By perpetuating a myth of these elite schools having uniquely gifted students and offering a uniquely brilliant education we have created a system that is simply another form of hereditary privilege.

Of course this will never change.  It is our uniquely American form of oligarchy - an oligarchy that takes its form in both business and government.  Is it horribly evil?  No, not really.  But it is unfair.  However, we can all take comfort in the fact that life and happiness are not closely related to power, wealth or business success.  The Stanford grad who is hired by another Stanford grad at McKinsey and then fast-tracked to an all-expenses paid MBA at Harvard three years later and then becomes a partner with a whopping million dollar a year income may in the long run be just as miserable as any other person on this planet who focuses their life and energy on making money and cultivating power.

I have experienced much of this myself and have observed it at very close quarters all my life.  Did I unduly benefit in my career from my Stanford and MIT pedigree?  Well, I am actually the exception – I deserve everything I got!  😉

The Thai Cave Rescue

I, like much of the world, was riveted by the cave rescue of the Thai soccer team.  This miraculous event has lessons on so many levels for our world.

In one sense a rescue like this seems to be a wildly extravagant and foolish use of resources.  People die tragically every day.  Why make such a massive effort to rescue 13 people who somewhat imprudently risked their lives by entering the cave at the onset of the monsoon season?

The answer is of course that human life is precious, and that something in our nature can cause us to go to extraordinary measures and conquer incredible obstacles to save another life.  We are at our best in these instances, and at a very basic level we all understand that.

What are some of the lessons we learned?  I made a list:

1. Humans from different cultures, ethnic groups, organizations and countries can work together harmoniously when they choose to do so; when there is a common goal and a result that benefits all.  
2. Don’t be frustrated or deterred by early disappointments.  The efforts to find the Thai soccer team did not produce results for over a week and there was every reason to believe that the team was no longer alive.  I read that many of the cave divers were preparing to abandon the search because of the technical difficulties, but when they saw the Thai Navy seals heading back into the cave to risk their lives with inadequate equipment and cave experience they were so moved that they changed their minds and re-committed themselves to the task. 
3. Let the experts lead the way; take advantage of skill and knowledge.  The ultimate success in finding and rescuing the team occurred because everyone deferred to the right people whose expertise guided the operation.  Many of our challenges today could benefit from acknowledging the expertise of people who have dedicated themselves to understanding and finding solutions to these problems, whether in healthcare, immigration, climate, trade, welfare, diplomacy, energy, gun control, crime or prisons.  There are experts in all of these fields. They should be driving the process rather than politicians who are pandering to the half-baked ideas of powerful businesses or wealthy individuals. 
4. Celebrate the result and whatever successes that occur in a way that promotes further harmony and community.  The Thai cave rescuers spoke as one about the teamwork and the contributions that every team member made.  Even the cave divers, who could have been singled out as celebrities, have been resolute in their rejection of any labels of heroism and have instead spoken consistently about the team effort and the amazing community of volunteers from so many countries.  Hopefully these divers will not succumb to the overwhelming media pressure to make them the heroes of the day.  We have a tendency to want to create individual superheroes rather than celebrate the heroic measures of the group. 
5. Be grateful for the good in this world and humble in receiving it.  The Thai youth that emerged from the cave showed amazing grace and gratitude for their rescue.  Their first act was to pay solemn respect and thanks to the Navy Seal who had perished in the rescue.  Their gentle nature and humble gratitude to all who had contributed to the operation was a powerful testament to the better angels of our humanity.

The search and rescue of the soccer team was not some macho military operation or a Hollywood script, though no doubt it will quickly be turned into one.  There was little in the way of posturing, bickering, grandstanding or other dramatic plot twists that beg for heroes and villains to be identified.  On the contrary, the rescue was a quiet, earnest and methodical operation with a cast of thousands and a single burning purpose – to show the world what can be done when we all work together.

Immigration – Open the Doors Wide

As I flew over the country last week it once again amazed me how little of our vast land mass is populated.  And it struck me how pathetically selfish we are to restrict immigration.  We are the richest nation in the world with the largest usable land mass and the most productive economy.  We are a land of immigrants and a melting pot of cultures and ethnic groups.  We have the occasional attribute of being incredibly compassionate and generous.  Yet we fret endlessly over the flow of immigrants over our southern border as if it were about to deal a death blow to our economy and culture.

Let’s be honest.  The immigration fear that we have is mostly about Americans of Northern European heritage becoming a minority.  It is not about economic stability or the threat of terrorism.  In terms of percentage, the immigrant flow now is no larger than our historical immigration.  But the current immigrants are generally non-European, and most are Spanish-speaking, which makes us nervous about the potential impact and change in the culture and character of our country.

The fact is that immigration has always been resented by many if not most Americans.  Each wave of immigration (Irish, German, Chinese, Eastern European, Italian, Jewish, etc.) has seemed alien and foreign to the current inhabitants.  It is a sad habit of human beings to resist change and fear its impact on their lives.  Despite being the most stridently self-proclaimed Christian nation on earth, we have rarely been able to enthusiastically embrace Jesus’s exhortation to ‘welcome the stranger’.

But there are also times when we have had the grace to celebrate our diversity and proclaim the positive effect of immigration on our land and life.  There are times when we realize how the energy and creativity of immigrants have transformed our country and made it better.

I believe we have the capacity to take in all the immigrants and refugees who are escaping war, gang violence, economic hardship and disease, and employ them usefully to grow our economy and enrich our culture.  Who is better positioned to do this than the richest country in the world with a long history of receiving immigrants?  We could grow to ten times our current population and still occupy a tiny portion of this great land.  Our rich traditions of political stability, entrepreneurship, strong work ethic, minimal corruption and social harmony are strong enough to absorb a massive influx and transform it into American citizenry with all its variety and energy.

Is it naïve to think that we could do this?  Would it overwhelm our institutions and create havoc?  It would definitely be challenging, but immigration is self-regulating to an extent anyway as job opportunities rise and fall.  And if it became a rallying cry for our country and a means to overcome the present political turmoil, then it would be well worth a few challenges!

Would Northern Europeans become a minority within the U.S.?  Probably, but so what?  Is our culture really a ‘Northern European’ culture?  What foods do we eat now?  What clothes do we wear, what arts do we celebrate, what music do we love?

 Our culture is already a mix of world cultures and it is all the richer for that fact.  Inter-marriage quickly eliminated many of the stark boundaries of prior immigration waves.  Who even notices whether someone’s ancestry is Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Russian or Polish these days?

So I say ‘open the doors wide’!  If we can be a beacon of light to the downtrodden and the desperate, what better role can there be?  In the long run, it is wiser for us to help transform the world through unparalleled generosity than to take a bunker mentality of ‘America first’ into a dystopian world future.

On Thugs and Harsh Realities

Recently a New York Times editorial columnist wrote a piece suggesting that perhaps Trump was the type of thuggish person necessary to match perverse wits with other world thugs in North Korea, Iran, Russia and China.

The longer Trump is in office the more inured we become to his childish and thuggish antics.  Out of sheer desperation for new things to write, many begin rationalizing his behavior and attempting to postulate new interpretations of his actions.

It is true that the world is often a brutal place and that foreign policy, and even economic policy, must be established with cold sobriety rather than the intoxication of idealism.  However, I do not accept the proposition that we must view everything through a lens of mistrust and cynicism.  If we abandon the goal of creating an equitable global community and replace it with a completely self-seeking, nationalist agenda – especially in light of our long-held position of wealth and dominance in the international community – then we are risking a rapid descent into conflict and bitter competition over ever-dwindling resources and spheres of influence.

True diplomacy is frustrating and tedious.  It does not try to appease, but neither does it provoke nor bluff.  Winning inequitably on one front will often lead to losses on another, or other unpleasant consequences that may not even be obvious for years.

The United States has been the dominant world power for almost one hundred years.  In recent decades the developing world seemed to be slowly catching up – China, India, Brazil, Russia and many others experiencing rapid growth and the gleeful creation of substantial middle-class segments of society.  But war, economic instability, climate change and political corruption have stalled the progress of many if not most developing countries.  We see the consequence of this paralysis in the tides of refugees and immigrants that now threaten the political stability of even the most progressive and socially conscious nations.

Pursuing an aggressive policy of ‘America first’ that simultaneously harms developing nations through tariffs and other punitive trade measures while mercilessly curtailing immigration and refugee resettlement will ultimately result in a powder keg of world chaos and despair.  The uncertain gains of such a policy will seem paltry indeed if we find ourselves surrounded by a rapidly deteriorating global civilization.  The richest nation in the history of the world with a legacy of noble ideas and generous welcoming of ‘the tired, poor and huddled masses’ can certainly do better than that!

Liberty and Social Justice

Our country was founded on the concept of liberty and this concept continues to be at the center of all the political and social turmoil that we are now experiencing.  Liberty is defined by Webster’s as follows:

the quality or state of being free:

a : the power to do as one pleases

b : freedom from physical restraint

c : freedom from arbitrary or despotic control

d : the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges

e : the power of choice

By the time of the writing of our Declaration of Independence and subsequently, our Constitution, the concept of liberty had been intensely debated and explored by a veritable who’s who of philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith.  Later, John Stuart Mill, in his treatise ‘Liberty’, captured many of our founders’ aims.

In a natural and ideal sense, liberty can mean the total freedom of an individual to do whatever one pleases.  But in human society liberty is defined with some restrictions in terms of a social contract.  One person’s liberty cannot impinge upon another’s for example.

Many of the first immigrants to American were seeking the liberty to practice their religious faith without persecution.  Others were attracted to the so-called New World for economic opportunity, and they sought liberty in terms of their freedom to seek their fortune with fewer taxes and bureaucratic obstacles.  They also chafed at the old European class systems that limited their opportunity for self-fulfillment.

Desperation and economic disaster were the catalysts for other immigrants.  The lofty ideals of liberty were not of immediate concern to these ‘tired, poor, huddled masses’.  The ‘yearning to breathe free’ reflected a much more basic need to be freed from slavery, serfdom, poverty and the poorhouse.

But the new land also attracted many discontents and borderline sociopaths and misanthropes – the whole anti-social spectrum of people who are not comfortable in close societal cooperation.  When one considers how radical an act it is to leave one’s family and friends for a foreign land with a high probability that one will never see them again, it is no wonder that America bred a uniquely contrarian and independent populace.

The War of Independence focused attention on the liberty of a people to form its own government and laws.  The tyranny of a remote government making decisions and establishing taxes without representation from those who were most affected was anathema to the colonists.

This concept of liberty from political tyranny was then augmented in our constitution with other basic rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, a universal right to vote (ignoring women and non-whites, which seriously diminishes the eternal universality of this document) and of course the endlessly confusing and controversial freedom to bear arms (a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state).

No one likes to be told what they can or cannot do.  Thus, liberty has universal appeal.   All forms of government, including the judiciary, police and military, infringe to some extent on basic liberties.  One can argue that a goal of civilization should be to have the minimum amount of government necessary to create a peaceful and harmonious society.  But the devil is in the details.

The fact is that our society has become more complex and more interwoven.  We have evolved from a nation of independent citizen-farmers to an urbanized nation with a complex web of industry and a fully integrated workforce.  The rugged individualism and political idealism of the 18^th century can no longer be held up as the model for concepts of government and liberty today.

By the mid-nineteenth century the industrial revolution rendered older models of society obsolete.  Feudal systems that at least gave some stability to the masses had been obliterated and grim urban nightmares replaced them with even harsher and more dangerous working environments.  Concepts of social justice and government activism on behalf of the poor or disenfranchised developed slowly and arrived just in time in barely adequate form to avoid worldwide revolution in the early twentieth century.  But the tension between liberty and social justice has persisted and will never be entirely resolved.

In Europe there is a recognition that society is stronger when individuals trade some elements of personal liberty in exchange for social justice.  The population density and history of Europe prepared its citizens to make this compromise. In America, the vast open spaces and frontier mentality of its citizens have created more obstacles for this type of reconciliation.

Liberty is most highly prized by those who have the luxury of a stable, well-paying job that provides for basic needs and a bit more.  Social justice – the creation of conditions that allow those on the lower end of the scale to prosper – is just as important as liberty for the smooth and harmonious functioning of a complex society.  Liberty cannot guarantee social justice, just as the free market cannot guarantee economic growth and stability.  Social justice and economic stability must be shepherded by government and social planners.  This is the simple truth.

Liberty demands that the means of creating social justice and economic stability be established with a minimum of bureaucracy and curtailment of individual freedom.  But in a society where individuals have complex and unpredictable relationships with one another, liberty cannot be deified and must be balanced with rules and regulations in a social contract that ensures social justice and a shared ‘good life’.

Alexa is Not Your Friend

Have you purchased an Echo or Google Home and started interacting with your digital overlord?  Has Alexa charmed you into thinking that your life will be so much easier with her steady hand on the helm?

One of my favorite old black and white movies is Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 with Julie Christie and Oskar Werner (from the book, which is also excellent, by Ray Bradbury).  The movie takes place in a futuristic, dystopian, mind-control society.  Books are illegal and burned.  The temperature required to burn paper is 451 degrees Fahrenheit, hence the name of the movie.  But the really creepy aspect of this movie is the wall-size television screen in everyone’s home that provides entertainment and also monitors the inhabitants and controls their lives with soothing, but firm instructions.

I have this feeling that Alexa and all her sisters in form and function are a trojan horse, the first step on our way to a Fahrenheit 451 society.  We already have massive TVs in our houses and they will be wall size soon enough.  How many waking hours do we while away in front of these monstrosities, binge-watching Netflix series or shouting out our pathetic exuberance at some sporting event while our bodies and minds waste away.

Alexa will be happy to free us up from tedious tasks like thinking or researching or getting up out of our seats or bed.  Want something to eat?  Let Alexa order it for you – no need to run to the store or work in the kitchen.  Need to know something?  Ask Alexa and she will tell you the answer.  You will probably forget it by the next day because you didn’t really make any real effort to learn it, but so what?  Is it too hot or cold?  Alexa will fix that so that you don’t have to go to the trouble of actually manipulating the thermostat.  In fact, pretty soon you will not even know there is such a thing as a thermostat, or even what temperature is.  You will just be very, very comfortable.