The book is a well-intentioned narrative about the perpetuation of the inequality by the top universities (appr. Ivy Leagues + Stanford + Chicago). First, the title is appropriate -- it is not clear whether there is "us" or "US". Second, the discussion is up to the point. But, on the whole, his reasonable suggestions are similar to the oncologist asking his patient to treat his eye cataracts first.
All modern societies but the US the fastest are quickly transforming into a "new feudalism." The fastest growing sector of employment in the US and, probably, UK is domestic help. Now it is not limited to butlers, cooks, cleaners and nannies. Billionaires and runner-up families quickly expand personal companies for managing their finances, staffs of retainer lawyers, accountants and personal shoppers.
US Congress practically eliminated taxes on capital gains. Interest write-offs on self-dealing loans are perfectly legal, if one is rich enough to hire high-powered lawyers to structure these deals. That created an incentive for the rich people to establish corporations essentially occupied by providing services to themselves.
Education in the United States had long served as a great equalizer. Yet, once you establish a privilege -- a practically guaranteed career to the graduates of Harvard, Princeton and Yale -- be sure that the wealthy would find a way to skew it in their favor. As this happened with the sexual services. Once Hollywood began to clean its act, and the wealth migrated from industrialists into haute finance, the strawberry patch of the rich and powerful shifted from Southern California and Florida to New York based model industry. And it allows underage girls to work! When I look at the careers of Harvard graduates published in the university's digest from 50s and 60s, bankers, politicians and white shoe lawyers surely predominate, but there are also military retirees, poets and gardeners. News of recent graduates are uniform; investment banking, private equity, politics, lobbying and high-powered law firms with a sprinkling of academics is all that left. When I view at the obituaries of the prominent physicists in the "Physics Today", their undergraduate education is dominated by big names, but there are also public universities and lesser name schools. Obviously, in olden times, high-falutin schools accepted the best and the brightest from a lesser contestants, the ladder, which has now been thrown away.
The recipes provided by Mandery are mostly geared towards underrepresented minorities. Their chances were steadily improving but now the Supreme Court undercut this path of social ascendance as well. Understandably "Students for Fair Admissions" ruling will cause a new flurry of the byzantine admission practices by the admissions offices, extricating the same information from the resumes, publicly available data and student essays. Like the old affirmative action their policies will be cynical, counterproductive and liable to lawsuits.
The only remaining way for social ascendancy are the over-bloated armed forces and intelligence services of America, now constantly at war. As with the Roman Empire, the future is less than promising.
No comments:
Post a Comment