Really? Wouldn't you think U.S. has the lowest proportion of "rich without merits" as %age of rich of any nation in the world – and indeed in history of world?
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. This is a totally valid point. For the downvoters: malchow's claim is that in the US, rich people are more likely to be businessmen or people who have otherwise worked for their wealth, rather than simply having been born to the right parents.
Grandparent is asserting a fact (that the US rich are probably the most historically meritous group of wealth individuals in history). It is not an intuitive fact, and it isn't presented with evidence.
There are two big issues:
* It is very hard to gut-feel wealth distribution (eg, http://marketrealist.com/2013/10/shutdown-101-perceived-weal...). Identifying who the US rich requires more study of statistics than most people have time for - so this assertion is about a group that is difficult to identify. If most of the US rich were in fact living quietly on family wealth from a generation ago, how would this be identified? How do we verify that these 'rich people' are indeed meritorious? They might not be.
* All of history is a very long time. Although the US is technologically the most advanced nation we have ever seen, to claim that it rewards the meritous more than any nation in history is probably wrong, and suggests grandparent isn't making a point based on careful thought. We have had democracy for more than 2,000 years, the US has only been around for ~300.
That's true, but won't that apply to Liu Zhongtian (the billionaire in question) too? He probably didn't start out rich, and even if he earned his wealth from this grey-area arbitrage, many rich people in the US do that too.
I agree with what you're saying, but at the same time it's a hell of a lot easier to end up a wealthy adult if you come from a wealthy family. "Small" loans from family etc.
Roughly 80% of American millionaires are the first generation of their families to be wealthy. Here's the surprising part - most of them get there by working hard and spending less money than they earn...
I like your link, but I couldn't find that particular statistic within it. Could you clarify?
Most of the studies I've seen reach the opposite conclusion, that parental lifetime income highly predicts the income of their children. For example, a child of parents in the 90th percentile has an expected income of over $100K, while a child of parents in the 10th percentile has an expected income of less than $40K.
Income isn't wealth, but I'd be surprised if the correlation isn't strong. What percentage of individuals in the US of 90th percent household wealth came from families in the top half versus bottom half growing up? I don't know off hand, but if I had to bet blindly on outcomes I'd strongly favor betting on the individual who started out better off.
Perhaps one could go off and have a look at the list of the richest people in the US, note how many of them are named Mars or Walton, then return here and realize that this theory, while hardly impossible, requires more evidence than mere assertion.
I would think the opposite in the U.S. Surely most wealth of the top N% (for some small N) is either inherited or enabled by existing family wealth and connections. The rags-to-riches hard worker stories are outliers.
The US famously has a high turn-over rate among its elite rich (just look up the Forbes rich lists from ~30 years ago), and also has a relatively high percentage of earned wealth at the top instead of inherited. One reason for that: in the US, extreme charitable giving is routine among the richest, whereas that's rare in eg Europe and Asia (Europe has far more dynastic wealth via family corporations at the top of its food chain; Western Europe has the highest percentage of rich people who inherited their wealth among major global economic regions).
Typically between 2/3 and 3/4 of all members of the Forbes 400 for example, are self-made. Roughly half of all members in that group originate from the middle class or lower.
Given that the US has among the lowest social mobility of developed nations, this is highly unlikely today.
Interestingly, Americans have more belief that their society is a meritocracy than most developed nations and so are especially unaware of the problem. I submit it is this commonly held perception rather than data that is informing you comment.
Obviously in the past, when democracies were even fewer in number, the situation may have been different.
Here[1] you'll find a bounty of links supporting my point were one to take time time to read it rather than instantly and silently down voting what one doesnt want to know.
> has among the lowest social mobility of developed nations
The US also already has among the highest median income of any developed nation, and nearly the highest median disposable income. The US also has a higher median household net worth than either Germany or Sweden. That would inherently make it more difficult for the US to keep pushing the boulder up the hill.
Further, in the US more people are moving up out of the middle class and into the higher income brackets, than are moving down and out of it. That has been true for 40 years running now. Given the immense scale, income and wealth involved in that result, it's a staggering accomplishment.
"middle class" is defined but the cohort of wages around the median. By definition, were it to disappear, exactly half the population will be above and half will be below its bounds. It is solely a measure of distribution of wealth not absolute wealth. In recent years more people have risen up out of it. And in many of the past 40 years, more have fallen down out of it. necessarily.
Likewise in the last 40 years, the US per capita GDP has risen close to 70% while the median income has risen less then 20%. But the problem of declining social mobility and rising inequality is not remotely unique to the US.
At least as disturbing is the resultant problem of the steady rise and now mainstreaming of politically extreme views in several western countries in (including the current presidential race obviously). I suggest the economic underpinnings of this problem are issues that we really ought to look at objectively rather than waving the flag and insisting we live in the best of all possible wolds.
and I thought: you must be new here