Focus on productivity

From Class Issues, Not Race, Will Likely Seal the Next Election by Joel Kotkin. I find much with which to agree and some to dispute. I think the fundamental observation is correct though. My experience is that Americans are far more attuned to Race than they are to Class and frequently interpret events as racial when they are in fact class based.

In terms of racial justice, we have made real progress since the ’60s, when even successful educated minorities were discriminated against and the brightest minority students were often discouraged from attending college. Today an African-American holds the highest office in the land, and African Americans also fill the offices of U.S. attorney general and national security advisor. This makes the notion that race thwarts success increasingly outdated.

But at the same time that formal racial barriers have been demolished, the class divide continues to grow steeper than in at any time in the nation’s recent history. Today America’s class structure is increasingly ossified, and this affects not only minorities, who are hit disproportionately, but also many whites, who constitute more than 40 percent of the nation’s poor. Upward mobility has stalled under both Bush and Obama, not only for minorities but for vast swaths of working class and middle class Americans.

But in any argument, even when you agree with the broad thrust, there are all sorts of assertions that warrant skepticism. For example:

Increasingly, it’s not the color of one’s skin that determines one’s place in society, but access to education and capital, often the inherited variety.

Yes, I would agree that it's not the color of skin. That feels obvious when you look at both individuals and when you look at successful emigrant groups with different skin colors.

Yes, I would agree that access to education and capital are contributors. But are they the determinants? I am skeptical of that.

But no, I can't go along with the assertion that capital is "often the inherited variety." What does that even mean? We know that among the richest people in the US, less than (IIRC) 20% are rich because they inherited wealth. Fortunes tend to dissipate in three generations. Only 5% of households have a net worth of greater than $1 million and I believe it is fewer than 1% that leave an estate valued at greater than a million. Yes, things are easier and better for the wealthy and yes the wealthy tend to invest heavily in their progeny but that is a different argument than that people advance based on inherited wealth.

The whole article is well worth a read as an effort to recast the discussions from increasingly futile and unproductive conversations such as race and gender, etc. I do think Kotkin's recasting around class is worthwhile but I still think it misses the target.

People are poor for a range of personal and contextual issues. I think the most worthwhile effort is not to focus on groups and not to focus on redistribution (solely), but rather to focus on productivity of the individual. What is it that is making this individual person less productive than they might otherwise be. Where the barriers are institutional, by all means, knock them down.

But increasingly, I think, it is apparent that many of the barriers are self-imposed and often behavioral in nature. How to get people to change their behaviors, set different goals, make better decisions so that they become more productive is the root goal.

If I am simply giving you someone else's money to get by, then I have you on a short leach. If I am helping you become more productive, then everyone benefits.