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Aristocracy is bad for the winners and worse for the losers. The point is, we have a common political problem. Reeves’s goal is to prevent the change that might come if we all decided this system sucks for everyone.
Reeves is wrong. It is not true the children of the upper middle class will be fine. The ladder has been being pulled up for decades. Fear is pervasive everywhere.
The other problem with Reeves's argument is there are many well-educated credentialed people who dislike being in well-paid useless professions but cannot find anywhere else to go because of concentrated power they cannot affect. mattstoller.substack.com/p/very-few-whi…
If you actually want to do cool meaningful things, even being a winner in a boring society isn't a fun place to be. Yes it's much worse if you are poor, but aristocracies only really work for those who enjoy being sycophants and bullies. mattstoller.substack.com/p/very-few-whi…
Reeves points out private equity exec William McGlashan should stop trying to get his kid into an elite school. His kid will be ok, Reeves says. How about Reeves tell McGlashan to stop doing private equity, which is *actively* harmful to the world?
Overall point is that it is a series of policies that dehumanize all of us. We shouldn't frame as whiners those who are relatively better off but rationally afraid for their children. We should try to show them that they too should want to change our political and policy frame.
The people who we should frame as whiners are those who want to keep their *power* in a system that is unjust. Being afraid for your kid's future doesn't make you bad. Doing bad things makes you bad.
