Anecdotes are intellectually dishonest. Statistics show that social mobility in the USA is low and in sharp decline.
Your selection of 13 out of 50 indicates that 75% of even your sample inherited their privilege. So my statement about the "majority" stands.
In addition, the list you select from includes only public wealth. Inherited wealth is usually private, and the privilege associated with private wealth is rarely public. Privilege itself is a private phenomenon.
The top 50 is a paltry analysis. The top 400 is even too paltry, though it is instructive. Look at real statistics that include the entire population not cherry picked media darlings who are used as anecdotes to distort the real statistics.
"Census data show that 81.6 percent of those families who were in the bottom quintile of the income distribution in 1985 were still in that bottom quintile the next year; for the top quintile the fraction was 76.3 percent."
The media promotes visibility of that minority who worked their way up. They don't report on statistics though.
As the social safety net and human rights are further eroded, social mobility will decline more quickly.
Don't let a few cherry picked anecdotes fool you.
" A 2007 study (by Kopczuk, Saez and Song) found social/economic mobility in America at top income levels "very stable" and "not mitigated the dramatic increase in annual earnings concentration since the 1970s."[17]
Economist Paul Krugman, argues that despite their "great ferocity in presenting its case and attacking its opponents", conservatives have resorted to "extraordinary series of attempts at statistical distortion". While in any given year, some of the people with low incomes will be "workers on temporary layoff, small businessmen taking writeoffs, farmers hit by bad weather" -- the rise in their income in succeeding years is not the same 'mobility' as poor people rising to middle class or middle income rising to wealth. It's the mobility of "the guy who works in the college bookstore and has a real job by his early thirties."
How is social mobility among inner city blacks? It's a disgrace. The attitude of libertarians toward inner city blacks is deeply immoral and racist. "Just let them rot! No talented Ted Turners could ever come from the ghetto!"
The most meritocratic individuals in our society are not entrepreneur billionaires like the shallow and selfish Larry Ellison. They are unsung intellectuals in ivory towers whose genius is not recognized by CNN because CNN is junk TV for idiots.
We don't live in a meritocracy. People like Larry Ellison are not meritorious. If the superich had any caring for the unfortunate the wealth gap would not be trending the way it is.
Those 13 people I listed represent 13 out of the top 50 richest people in the US. Not cherry picked anecdotes. They represent 25% of the top 50 wealthiest Americans.
I'm not arguing about social mobility amongst the bottom quartile or the top 1% or anything else. I am refuting your claim that the all of the "super rich" inherited their wealth.
You said this:
>The far majority of the superrich inherited their wealth.
When I provided statistics that showed only 31% of billionaires inherited their wealth. You said this:
>It's bullshit. They were born into connected families and simply built on the advantages they already had.
You stated a fact without evidence, I provided evidence to refute your claim (also why do you care about evidence--you said earlier this isn't Nature).
At least 25% of the 50 richest Americans started out with no fortune or family connections whatsoever.
Even more of them were only upper middle class, but I didn't include them.
Your selection of 13 out of 50 indicates that 75% of even your sample inherited their privilege. So my statement about the "majority" stands.
In addition, the list you select from includes only public wealth. Inherited wealth is usually private, and the privilege associated with private wealth is rarely public. Privilege itself is a private phenomenon.
The top 50 is a paltry analysis. The top 400 is even too paltry, though it is instructive. Look at real statistics that include the entire population not cherry picked media darlings who are used as anecdotes to distort the real statistics.
"Census data show that 81.6 percent of those families who were in the bottom quintile of the income distribution in 1985 were still in that bottom quintile the next year; for the top quintile the fraction was 76.3 percent."
The media promotes visibility of that minority who worked their way up. They don't report on statistics though.
As the social safety net and human rights are further eroded, social mobility will decline more quickly.
Don't let a few cherry picked anecdotes fool you.
" A 2007 study (by Kopczuk, Saez and Song) found social/economic mobility in America at top income levels "very stable" and "not mitigated the dramatic increase in annual earnings concentration since the 1970s."[17] Economist Paul Krugman, argues that despite their "great ferocity in presenting its case and attacking its opponents", conservatives have resorted to "extraordinary series of attempts at statistical distortion". While in any given year, some of the people with low incomes will be "workers on temporary layoff, small businessmen taking writeoffs, farmers hit by bad weather" -- the rise in their income in succeeding years is not the same 'mobility' as poor people rising to middle class or middle income rising to wealth. It's the mobility of "the guy who works in the college bookstore and has a real job by his early thirties."
How is social mobility among inner city blacks? It's a disgrace. The attitude of libertarians toward inner city blacks is deeply immoral and racist. "Just let them rot! No talented Ted Turners could ever come from the ghetto!"
The most meritocratic individuals in our society are not entrepreneur billionaires like the shallow and selfish Larry Ellison. They are unsung intellectuals in ivory towers whose genius is not recognized by CNN because CNN is junk TV for idiots.
We don't live in a meritocracy. People like Larry Ellison are not meritorious. If the superich had any caring for the unfortunate the wealth gap would not be trending the way it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the_...