The Upward Mobility Myth

[Mongoose]

That works for me. You weren't making much sense anyway.

At least I'm not rudely painting people who disagree with me as lazy, inconsiderate, and selfish bums. Don't think I haven't thought this stuff through. I've dealt with the arguments you are using before, and I'm making plenty of sense. One thing I haven't dealt with, though, is someone like you painting rude and irrelevant pictures of me without knowing a single thing about who I am just because I disagree with you.

I don't think any of the socialists on this board appreciate the stereotype that you're painting them with.

Physics, huh? Well, that certainly qualifies you for arguing with me about financial matters.

These aren't financial matters. They're matters of whether or not there really is a correlation between how hard someone works and how much money they make.

And would you stop making personal attacks like this? You're the worst person I've ever discussed with on this board as far as rude comments like this go. Just because I'm not an economist or a politician doesn't mean I'm not capable of speculating about these subjects. It's not like you have any more credibility than I.

I think about other people every day. They're all around me, and a lot more difficult to deal with than the nebulous "third world". Just what do you expect me to do about the "third world"? Better still, what do you think you're going to do about it? Are you going to talk about it? Raise my conciousness?

I hear a lot of talk and very little action, especially from people your age. What are you going to do, other than try to get me to salve your conscience by financing your worldview?

What am I going to do? Well, I seek to solve the world's problems with science. I'm actually going into a field I feel that can offer the world something. I think there will be more promising results from innovation rather than politics.

When you need medicine and treatment the wisdom of having money becomes clear. It comes in handy for taking care of your children and your children's children, too.

Medicine is hardly anyone's motivation for becoming rich. If someone wants wealth just so that they can take care of their family, then why do they buy mansions, yachts, expensive cars, and all of that other decadent stuff they could live without?

Nobody "takes" anything except socialist pickpockets who tax a man's last penny in some misguided notion that the nanny state government will somehow take care of you. We earn our money. It's easy to talk about "giving back" when you're not the one doing the giving, isn't it?

Tell me something. Do you honestly believe that someone who makes a million dollars a year, thus earning twenty times more than someone who makes fifty thousand, actually worked twenty times more? No, that's humanly impossible. And twenty times is an understatement of the reality! Some people are making 600 times more! Don't give me that **** about people actually "earning" this excessive wealth.

In a capitalist system, these wealthy people are taking the money that their employees have earned. That's what profit is all about.

My idea of socialism isn't so much about equal wealth, but rather actually giving people what they have earned. If someone doesn't work, then they don't get anything.

You mean by their own communistic governments, don't you?

Are you joking? Do you honestly think they are communist governments? China is no longer a communist government. They've given up on it, and have become very capitalist. And that is why they are rivaling our economy. As for the other two, they are just tools for the bigger capitalist countries such as China and USA. They aren't being exploited by any governments. They're being exploited by the private industries.

Just wait until those countries have a progressivist age of their own, much like the one we had. Then, our corporations won't be able to milk them for cheap labor. As a result, all capitalist economies will collapse, including ours. Hopefully that will happen before capitalism destroys the world, its resources, and its environments.

Anyway, I've got better, more well-mannered and intelligent people who share the same ideologies as you to discuss this with, with which I can be much more intellectually productive, so I'm done with this thread. Your strategies of rudeness and intimidation have worked in this debate and have scared me away. Keep it up and maybe eventually everyone will ignore you! How fun. So with that, I bid you good day.

 

[far rider]

Anyway, I've got better, more well-mannered and intelligent people who share the same ideologies as you to discuss this with, with which I can be much more intellectually productive, so I'm done with this thread.

And you want to scold me about "personal attacks"?

Being confronted with reality is usually viewed as "hate", "ignorance", "bad manners" and such by products of government schools, so I am not surprised. In the meantime, they want to exhibit their "bad manners", which they like to refer to as "dissent" or "constructive criticism".

I wish I was young again and knew everything.

 

[arnegrim]

If this isn't a myth, then someone explain to me all of these workers and small-business owners I know who have been working 50-60 hours a week and are still struggling to pay the bills. I don't think they want to be told that it's because they haven't been "working hard," when they sure as hell have been working harder than any multi-millionaire CEO.

Let's face it: the money you make in this country is not determined by how hard you work. It's all about being in the right place at the right time.

Then tell me why you have all these small business owners who become millionaires?

 

[arnegrim]

Your post following this, speaking of the 4 million households with millionaire wealth, indicates exactly what the original poster is suggesting. You are making his case for him.

Four million households is a tiny percentage of the total population. Single digit tiny. I'd guess somewhere around 5%. We all can't be millionaires. We all can't be doctors. As someone else pointed out, our economic system requires "winners" and "losers," or...capitalists and laborers. The system is set up so that a certain number of people MUST "fail" (the vast majority, comparitively speaking).

Look at it this way. Wal-Mart will always need clerks. Those jobs will never pay (relatively) more than they do now. Even if every single person in the country received an MBA from Harvard, the economic realities of Wal-Mart would not change. What we would then have are thousands of Harvard post-graduates working as $10 per hour Wal-Mart greeters.

Are you saying that NOONE in America is 'worthy' of being a checker at Wal-mart?

 

[Scholar in training]

Reposting this because it went ignored before:

"If you feel the CEO "enslaving" his workers, become one yourself and fix it! That's the difference between capitalism and socialsim, you can change your lot in life! It may not be easy, but most things worth attaining are not. Not all CEO's were born with a silver spoon, in fact many started out very poor and through a lifetime of very hard work, perserverance and determination became one. As CEO, you could lower your income and raise your workers income and benefits. It would be up to you. Granted, not all who start on that path would make it, but some would, and even those who don't would still be better off than if they had not tried. In socialism, why even try? It's a welfare state which rewards the status quo. No motivation, no personal acheivement, you're just a cog in the government machine.

I know people who come from very poor backgrounds can climb out. It takes an awful lot of hard work, wise decisions, foresight, faith and confidence. But it can be done. More than people would like to think, it is within their reach. It is not easy, but doable. It may take a lifetime, but it's doable. Problem is people see those who are better off and feel it isn't "fair". How do you know that person didn't start off at mcdonalds or as a janitor and climb their way up through experience and good work ethics?

I personally have a good friend, whom I met at work several years ago. He came to the U.S. from Mexico with his wife and two kids (legally). He was extremely poor, and his entire family had to live with another family. He was on welfare. He worked his butt off, two jobs, mimimum wage, plus school. His wife worked an opposite schedule, working when he had time off from school. He always gave his fullest to whatever he was currently doing, at one job they promoted him, he also got excellent grades. He got a scholorship. He used that money from the scholorship to pay tuition and his job income, minus absolute bare minimum living expenses, went into savings. He graduated and got an $8 an hour job. (No a college degree doesn't equal instant money, but it might further your potential.) He worked that job, the whole while still living in another persons house, splitting rent, and feeding his kids with welfare. After 10 years of this, he started flight school. During flight school they struggled. They could have used that money to rent his own place, but he had a goal and stuck it out. A few years after starting flight school he was hired by a regional airline, at which he is now a captain, making in the high 5 figures. It took him 16 years from the time he decided to better his life until he was hired at his end goal job. Now his kids will have a better life than he ever had. He now sends money to some of his family back in Mexico also. This guy had faith and the drive to make the sacrafices necessary to climb out of his hole, and he and his descendants are better off for it. He has told me he nearly gave up many times, especially in the beginning. But now he has the potential to make a decent six figure salary, send his kids to college, etc. He has shown me pictures of how he lived in Mexico. It wasn't much better than a shack. I admire this guy more than anyone I know. He is proof it can work. I realize it may not work for everyone who tries, but at least they have a chance.

Socialism may have kept him out of a shack, but he certainly would have never achieved what he has. He is very happy, and is extremely motived. In the end, socialism holds that society back, stifling advancement and growth. You are enslaved to the system in socialsim. Socialism invalidates personal responsibility, capitalism rewards it."

http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=16367371#post16367371

Who says that upward mobility is a myth?

 

[Milla]

Are you saying that NOONE in America is 'worthy' of being a checker at Wal-mart?

Certainly there is a need for checkers, and there are people who are not qualified for whatever reason for higher-ranking positions. But think: if the CEO takes a day off, does the Wal-Mart stop running? No. If the checkers take the day off, does the the Wal-Mart stop running? Yes. They are valuable and necessary employees and should be treated as such. This is the same in all service industries. But instead they are not given much respect by society and they are seldom invested in the companies financially via stocks or profit-sharing.

 

[HouseApe]

Reposting this because it went ignored before:

"If you feel the CEO "enslaving" his workers, become one yourself and fix it! That's the difference between capitalism and socialsim, you can change your lot in life! It may not be easy, but most things worth attaining are not. Not all CEO's were born with a silver spoon, in fact many started out very poor and through a lifetime of very hard work, perserverance and determination became one. As CEO, you could lower your income and raise your workers income and benefits. It would be up to you. Granted, not all who start on that path would make it, but some would, and even those who don't would still be better off than if they had not tried. In socialism, why even try? It's a welfare state which rewards the status quo. No motivation, no personal acheivement, you're just a cog in the government machine.

I know people who come from very poor backgrounds can climb out. It takes an awful lot of hard work, wise decisions, foresight, faith and confidence. But it can be done. More than people would like to think, it is within their reach. It is not easy, but doable. It may take a lifetime, but it's doable. Problem is people see those who are better off and feel it isn't "fair". How do you know that person didn't start off at mcdonalds or as a janitor and climb their way up through experience and good work ethics?

I personally have a good friend, whom I met at work several years ago. He came to the U.S. from Mexico with his wife and two kids (legally). He was extremely poor, and his entire family had to live with another family. He was on welfare. He worked his butt off, two jobs, mimimum wage, plus school. His wife worked an opposite schedule, working when he had time off from school. He always gave his fullest to whatever he was currently doing, at one job they promoted him, he also got excellent grades. He got a scholorship. He used that money from the scholorship to pay tuition and his job income, minus absolute bare minimum living expenses, went into savings. He graduated and got an $8 an hour job. (No a college degree doesn't equal instant money, but it might further your potential.) He worked that job, the whole while still living in another persons house, splitting rent, and feeding his kids with welfare. After 10 years of this, he started flight school. During flight school they struggled. They could have used that money to rent his own place, but he had a goal and stuck it out. A few years after starting flight school he was hired by a regional airline, at which he is now a captain, making in the high 5 figures. It took him 16 years from the time he decided to better his life until he was hired at his end goal job. Now his kids will have a better life than he ever had. He now sends money to some of his family back in Mexico also. This guy had faith and the drive to make the sacrafices necessary to climb out of his hole, and he and his descendants are better off for it. He has told me he nearly gave up many times, especially in the beginning. But now he has the potential to make a decent six figure salary, send his kids to college, etc. He has shown me pictures of how he lived in Mexico. It wasn't much better than a shack. I admire this guy more than anyone I know. He is proof it can work. I realize it may not work for everyone who tries, but at least they have a chance.

Socialism may have kept him out of a shack, but he certainly would have never achieved what he has. He is very happy, and is extremely motived. In the end, socialism holds that society back, stifling advancement and growth. You are enslaved to the system in socialsim. Socialism invalidates personal responsibility, capitalism rewards it."

http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=16367371#post16367371

Who says that upward mobility is a myth?

I think your post would be more convincing if you could provide some statistics. What percentage of people who put in the effort of your Mexican friend actually make achieve their ambitions? How about taking that and collating it by relevant factors: level of education, parental influences, age, health, etc...

Your mexican friends story is inspiring. But if only one in 100 "make it", then I don't think you've really refuted the "myth of upward mobility".

 

[arnegrim]

I think your post would be more convincing if you could provide some statistics. What percentage of people who put in the effort of your Mexican friend actually make achieve their ambitions? How about taking that and collating it by relevant factors: level of education, parental influences, age, health, etc...

Your mexican friends story is inspiring. But if only one in 100 "make it", then I don't think you've really refuted the "myth of upward mobility".

Why not? You say its not possible... its been shown by countless people to be possible...

 

[arnegrim]

Certainly there is a need for checkers, and there are people who are not qualified for whatever reason for higher-ranking positions. But think: if the CEO takes a day off, does the Wal-Mart stop running? No. If the checkers take the day off, does the the Wal-Mart stop running? Yes. They are valuable and necessary employees and should be treated as such. This is the same in all service industries. But instead they are not given much respect by society and they are seldom invested in the companies financially via stocks or profit-sharing.

How many of those checkers have done what the CEO did to get to where he is today?

None.

 

[HouseApe]

Why not? You say its not possible... its been shown by countless people to be possible...

Well we have to define the myth. I define it as: 'if you work hard and make reasonable choices, you will be upwardly mobile'.

So that everyone who does the above will see a continuing increase in their standard of living measured over some relatively short periods of time.

However if you define it as 'if you work hard and make reasonable choices, you might be upwardly mobile', then certainly it is not a myth.

Now certainly, some who work hard and make reasonable choices will succeed, others won't. I think it comes down to percentages. If say 90% succeed under the formula, then I would say it is not a myth. If though only 10% succeed, then it is a myth. Where to draw the line is a subjective decision, but without adequate statistics, no one really has a case to make here.

 

[Milla]

How many of those checkers have done what the CEO did to get to where he is today?

None.

Financially and logisitically, though, that's irrelevant. They are necessary to running the company. Whether the checkers have degrees from Harvard or GEDs from the state pen, they are upholding both the company and the larger capitalist system. As such, they should be valued by that system and those companies. But generally, they're not.

 

[Seeking...]

I think the single greatest determination of success is a parent or guardian that can teach a child the value of:

1. Working hard / working smart
2. Delayed gratification
3. Saving

A poor child raised with this will reach whatever level of success he is striving for.
A rich child raised without this will likely squander his life and inheritance.

 

[arnegrim]

Financially and logisitically, though, that's irrelevant. They are necessary to running the company. Whether the checkers have degrees from Harvard or GEDs from the state pen, they are upholding both the company and the larger capitalist system. As such, they should be valued by that system and those companies. But generally, they're not.

And the receptionists at a doctors office should be as valued as the doctor...!?! Perhaps you could talk to a doctor and see if he's willing to split his earnings equally among all his staff?

 

[HouseApe]

I think the single greatest determination of success is a parent or guardian that can teach a child the value of:

1. Working hard / working smart
2. Delayed gratification
3. Saving

A poor child raised with this will reach whatever level of success he is striving for.
A rich child raised without this will likely squander his life and inheritance.

You know Seeking, this is really a great post. It screams out the problem that if the parents of the poor knew this, they wouldn't be poor in the first place. But not knowing means they won't pass it to their children. And, of course, vice-versa for the rich.

Which is why the poor tend to remain poor, generation after generation, and the rich remain rich. Though some do break the cycle, on both sides.

 

[Milla]

And the receptionists at a doctors office should be as valued as the doctor...!?! Perhaps you could talk to a doctor and see if he's willing to split his earnings equally among all his staff?

If people were willing to financially acknowledge the people upon whose shoulders they stand, wage descrepancies wouldn't even be an issue. But in any case, it's not the same situation. The CEO of Wal-Mart is paid something like 23 million dollars a year, not counting stocks and perks. The differential between him and the checkers is absurd. The differential between a doctor and the nurses or clerical staff is far smaller and easier to attribute to investment in education and responsibility instead of pure greed. A doctor or a CEO has a greater share of the responsiblity and risk of blame, and should be compensated accordingly - but not at the cost of exploiting the lower-level workers.

 

[arnegrim]

If people were willing to financially acknowledge the people upon whose shoulders they stand, wage descrepancies wouldn't even be an issue. But in any case, it's not the same situation. The CEO of Wal-Mart is paid something like 23 million dollars a year, not counting stocks and perks. The differential between him and the checkers is absurd. The differential between a doctor and the nurses or clerical staff is far smaller and easier to attribute to investment in education and responsibility instead of pure greed. A doctor or a CEO has a greater share of the responsiblity and risk of blame, and should be compensated accordingly - but not at the cost of exploiting the lower-level workers.

Ahhh... you're assuming they're being exploited.

Why don't they do something other then checker? Why don't they become the doctor... or start their own business...?

 

[neverforsaken]

exactly. those fail to plan, plan to fail.

 

[nvxplorer]

Ahhh... you're assuming they're being exploited.

Why don't they do something other then checker? Why don't they become the doctor... or start their own business...?

This is something that many are failing to acknoweldge about capitalistic systems.

Capitalism is based on inequity. That's how it works. I'm not criticizing it; just stating facts.

Yes, people are sometimes responsible for their lot in life, other times they're not. But that isn't the point. Wal-Mart cannot operate without checkers. This is not a reflection of the inabilities of the checkers. It is a position which must be filled for the company to operate.

Many are using personal experience or that of a friend in refutation of the OP. It doesn't work that way. The statistics in the OP are indicative of the economy as a whole. They are macro-economic statistics.

You have to think macro-economically in order to see the truth of the OP's claim. You cannot point to yourself, your friend, a checker or a receptionist to understand what they mean.

In a small, closed system such as Wal-Mart, upward mobility is not the same as it is macro-economically. The economy as a whole has a limited number of resources, jobs, and job opportunities. These jobs will be filled regardless of the aggregate education, motivation, etc. of the applicants. While education is certainly key to economic growth, without economic growth, no one can advance, macro-economically speaking, regardless of the individual qualities of people.

Now, the statistics in the OP are undeniable. They measure the entire population and the entire economy. They cannot be disputed.

 

[Milla]

Ahhh... you're assuming they're being exploited.

Why don't they do something other then checker? Why don't they become the doctor... or start their own business...?

Do you believe that everyone has the intellect, stability and temperment to become a doctor or similarly high-education high-pressure career?

Yes, people are sometimes responsible for their lot in life, other times they're not. But that isn't the point. Wal-Mart cannot operate without checkers. This is not a reflection of the inabilities of the checkers. It is a position which must be filled for the company to operate.

Precisely. The question is not "why is this person a checker?" The question is, "if checkers are necessary to run the company, why are checkers not valued?"

 

[arnegrim]

This is something that many are failing to acknoweldge about capitalistic systems.

Capitalism is based on inequity. That's how it works. I'm not criticizing it; just stating facts.

Yes, people are sometimes responsible for their lot in life, other times they're not. But that isn't the point. Wal-Mart cannot operate without checkers. This is not a reflection of the inabilities of the checkers. It is a position which must be filled for the company to operate.

Yes... and fortunately (or unfortunately) there are many in our country who do not want to do what it takes to get beyond the point of 'checker'.... it is available to them... they are stopping themselves. Would the system work if everyone were CEO's...? No... but not everyone wants to be a CEO or put in the effort to make that kind of money. That doesn't change the fact that upward mobility is a reality.