Quote:
Originally Posted by
mickeycrimm
Quote:
Originally Posted by
redietz
Mickey, you're completely wrong on this. There are entire fields of research devoted to social mobility. It's an established, well-researched science. The US is "inelastic," as they call it, compared to peer countries in terms of social mobility. The UK and Italy are worse than the US; almost everyone else -- Canada, Japan, Denmark, Spain, Germany, Australia, Finland, New Zealand -- are all better than the US.
When it comes to multi-generational mobility, measuring how many generations it takes for a family to reach average per capita, the US scores better, but it is still dead in the middle of the western world.
The US is actually poor compared to other western democracies when it comes to social mobility. And social mobility overall, in all western countries combined, has stalled since the 1990's. It's not improving.
That's some great socialist propaganda you got there, redietz. To bad I ain't buying it. What do you think the Yellow Vest's opinion of your supposition would be?
Not really a supposition, mickey. Certainly not MY supposition.
Do your own research, mickey. You have library access. You can either decide hundreds of researchers writing thousands of papers over decades know their subject matter better than you know the subject matter, or you can decide you know the subject matter better than they do. That's for you to decide. Nobody's asking you to buy anything. The question is, when you google the material or read the journals, are you going to be able to change your mind? I don't care if you do or you don't. I just pointed out, as a friend, that you're wrong about something. If you want to continue to believe that your personal gathering of anecdotal information and reading outweighs the hundreds of professional researchers, that's your decision. It's my job, as your friend and someone who respects you, to point out that you are wrong. If you prefer to think you're correct, so be it. I did my job.
I gave the same argument for years to Alan Mendelson. Either the math professionals knew their stuff, or he did. Two plus two and all that.
Here we go, for those wanting to dip a toe into the research. It's worth repeating that the UK does worse in social mobility than the US:
https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-...ries-mobility/
https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ed-since-1990s
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...mobility-index
My late wife had a doctorate in anthropology and a doctorate in demography. Demographers study this (among many other things) from a historical perspective and in the present.
As usual, I suggest nobody mistake me for an expert, in this case a social mobility expert. Dial up your local university and consult a professional sociologist or demographer if you want to learn about social mobility reality and myths. They can point you to better current readings and data.