The birth of a new american aristocracy?

[Yeekim]

Yeah, and in the current society, it seems to be the best predictor of future success.

Strenze study took its data from 1929-2003. Largest bulk of it refers to 60s and 70s. That's hardly current.
If latest studies show IEE rapidly shrinking in US, it is quite justified to be concerned that the society as a whole is becoming less meritocratic. Which means that looking back, we might see how IQ becomes worse at predicting success.
Also, let's take a step back. You started by saying:

*Sigh* IQ is a better predictor of future success than parental socio-economic status is (Strenze, 2006). Yet we're supposed to have a serious discussion about this "intergenerational earnings elasticity", which could be wholly explained by genetics, while at the same time we're supposed to pretend that genes and intelligence aren't a thing

Direct quote from the study:

The index of parental SES, arguably the most representative measure of social background, did not differ significantly from intelligence in its predictive power
(see Table 1).

In fact, the correlation is 0,56 vs 0,55.
I stand by my original reply: people who pretend genes don't exist are indeed ridiculous.
Almost as ridiculous as those who pretend genetics can wholly explain everything.

 

[Lexicus]

I stand by my original reply: people who pretend genes don't exist are indeed ridiculous.
Almost as ridiculous as those who pretend genetics can wholly explain everything.

And I would like to add, yet again for the people in the back, that "genetic" does not mean "determined before birth and unchanging"

 

[Traitorfish]

Remind me again what historical Point we're proving here? I can think of examples even from ancient Rome of noble families that were nonetheless impoverished. But my point was never that nobility was interchangeable with aristocracy, it was that a hereditary nobility is a specific type of aristocracy. If you want me to change that to "it's a social structure that dovetails with aristocracy under most circumstances" I have no problem with that. I still maintain that an aristocracy can exist on a continuum varying from closed/hereditary to open/constantly changing its composition.

The point we're proving is,

"Aristocracy" implies a closed hereditary elite. The existence of rich people, let alone a political leadership, does not in itself constitute an aristocracy.

If "aristocracy" just means "rich people", then it doesn't really mean anything, because we already have a term for rich people, and it's "rich people".

It's not useful to use "nobility" to mean a closed, hereditary elite, because nobility already means something else, a privileged legal class, one which in practice only firmly ticks the "hereditary" box; whether a nobility is closed or elite depends on context, and that context is often a question of how far nobility is restricted to the aristocracy.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Being wealthy does not imply aristocracy as merchants in feudal Japan were considered the lowest of the classes as they were considered abusing all other classes. Then they started loaning money and effectively wielded political power and bought titles and adopted poor samurai children so they could leach off the aristocratic name. I think you would find that replicated in Europe from the same time period onward.

The end result of that nonsense is the zaibatsu who are largely responsible for the most heinous actions of the Imperial Japanese Army and extreme imperialism. The same thing happens when bankers in America end up concentrating wealth to create an aristocracy who can buy out any politician through the Council of Foreign Relations.

No what makes those in that list a new aristocracy was subsequently assigning some blueblood status to their descendants. Mommy and daddy were robber barons and then the offspring become powerful and it carries over into influence peddling as an aspect of maintaining the business.

Then since movies and tv are not purely art and entertainment but revenue streams that are considerable, these end up doing the same thing with producers' and actors' families carrying on the business and assigned some aristocratic social value by virtue of wealth and birth.

Nothing is worse that political families being heralded as the perfect knee jerk choice to run for powerful mayor positions in large urban areas, then being assigned government positions where they then become senator candidates and so on. This is why the same political families are all related and run Washington.

 

[Lexicus]

If "aristocracy" just means "rich people", then it doesn't really mean anything, because we already have a term for rich people, and it's "rich people".

The aristocracy isn't just rich people though, it means a class of people who maintain an elite status due to their (alleged) intrinsic superiority to others. That intrinsic superiority might reside in the bloodline and be passed down by hereditary means, but in contemporary societies it's more common for wealth itself to be considered evidence of the intrinsic superiority of the wealthy person, and thus a person born into modest circumstances who then becomes rich has revealed the intrinsic superiority he possessed all along.

 

[Traitorfish]

Does anybody outside of a History of Philosophy class actually use it in that sense, though?

Advocates of the wealth-as-civic virtue model you describe usually go out of their way to describe it as anything but an aristocracy; "meritocracy" is the preferred term.

 

[Lexicus]

Does anybody outside of a History if Philosophy class actually use it in that sense, though?

I mean, I'm not in a History of Philosophy class. I hope we can agree to disagree on precise use of the word "aristocracy" and still remain...ah...friendly acquaintances.

But, I actually think this fine distinction has some important implications for social systems. A society where the general view is that elites are elite due to their intrinsic superiority is going to be more stratified than one where elites are just luckier than the rest of us.

 

[Traitorfish]

No, you are now my blood-foe. Our clans shall war eternal, lo, unto the ending of the world.

 

[Lexicus]

No, you are now my blood-foe. Our clans shall war eternal, lo, unto the ending of the world.

Damn hair-splitters! They ruined hair-splitting!

 

[Cassius Critzer]

It's not a crime to acquire wealth to improve stability. That should be the goal of all. The problem is creating a hereditary class by grotesque concentration of wealth that exceeds the excesses of Roman senators. That is creating a perpetual class of extremely powerful people and harming humanity to benefit 20,000 people.

Want to be wealthy right away? Open a pawn shop...but you will not become an aristocrat. But become a high level banker and you will create aristocracy and it is no less malevolent.

 

[Ajidica]

That is creating a perpetual class of extremely powerful people and harming humanity to benefit 20,000 people.

Well, we already have a solution to that particular problem.

Remember: When in doubt, storm the Winter Palace.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Ending private property is worse. Then the aristocracy are valuable members of the Revolution who subsequently serve in the Politburo and then get dachas because their needs are greater than the need of the People.

 

[onejayhawk]

Well, we already have a solution to that particular problem.
Remember: When in doubt, storm the Winter Palace.

There was a proletariate revolution in USA. It elected Trump. Ironic, no?

J

 

[cardgame]

I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

 

[Ajidica]

There was a proletariate revolution in USA. It elected Trump. Ironic, no?

J

 

[Lexicus]

There was a proletariate revolution in USA. It elected Trump. Ironic, no?

"Workers of the world, unite and fight for a white South Africa!"

The parallels are astounding...

 

[Ajidica]

Didn't South Africa have a pretty strong trade union movement (at least for whitey)?

 

[Lexicus]

Didn't South Africa have a pretty strong trade union movement (at least for whitey)?

It had an apartheid trade union movement. The white labor organizations ended up largely separate from the black ones, and white people willing to organize along multiracial lines were very rare by the 1940s. But it was the black trade unions that basically provided the institutional basis for the mass movement against the white regime after the ANC was forced underground in the early sixties.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

You do not want to get so off topic as to discuss the heinous current situation of innumerable rape and murder of white farm owners that is justified by the current administration.

In America, natural rights theory says all rights are inherent and inalienable and by historical agreement inviolate. But aristocracy desire a perpetual recogniztion of superiority...and this is supported by weak people who then fawn over their comments on political matters and then elect them.

Trump is a de facto aristocrat, but should we persist someday and elect his daughter, then of course that would be the birth of a new political family and a true aristocracy. That is all bad and an issue in places like Mexico.

Some Americans are sycophants who will watch when the English royal family has a marriage ceremony. The same people will comment on the clothing of political family members and it is sickening. That is why we had the American Revolution as we despised some king ruling over us.

Look at the grotesque way the Kennedys were adored...then tell me there is no American aristocracy.

 

[Broken_Erika]

There was a proletariate revolution in USA. It elected Trump. Ironic, no?

J