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This seems like an overestimate to me. Have you seen the studies on how in places like china, people who were part of the regime were, after the communists took over, much poorer, worse off socially, etc., but in two generations, they now are again the ones in power? This would make it seem like a tendency towards being an elite could well be heritable. You'll respond to this that there are substantial cultural differences (they raised their children differently) which is entirely fair and reasonable.
When I look at what is holding black people back, I don't think the left's policies are well aligned. Setting aside IQ sorts of things, there are obviously real problems with US black culture that no one really is trying to fix—the high rates of sleeping around, low rates of marriage, high rates of divorce, low rates of fathers present, glorification of crime, less savings and financial responsibility, higher levels of dependence on welfare, and all around less of a vision of what a healthy life looks like and more of an emphasis on taking nice things now. Or at least so I have been led to believe.
The solution, apparently? Affirmative action, which does little to deal with most of those, and instead promotes black people beyond their level of ability, leading them to systematically be less competent and hurting those who genuinely deserve the positions they have earned by their own ability. Affirmative action literally makes racism justified—I should rationally expect that a black person holding a position is less competent than a white person holding the same position, for most high status jobs!
This is true for many other progressive policies: opposition to prosecution of crime leads to more crime, which makes black culture worse. Not stopping shoplifting reduces the presence of stores and leads to higher prices. Opposition to SATs, because of racial disparities, when in actuality SATs are more equitable and better measure merit at the top levels than the metrics more easily gameable by wealth.
The attempt to argue for systemic racism, and simultaneously defend black culture, when the systemic racism is black culture is unhealthy. Bush was not wrong when he spoke of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
As it currently exists, if a black person is capable, they will have no problem reaching the upper echelons of society (though they may not be as respected when they get there). They will have preferential treatment at every step of the way.
One thing that makes this make more sense than what you are suggesting: black immigrants do better than their children, who do better than their grandchildren, I believe. Many see this as a genetic regression to the mean (I'm not familiar enough with how that would work), but it could also be due to that the children/grandchildren end up more captured by the harmful culture. Under your model, they would have successful parents, and so should be more successful.
What then should be done? I'm not sure. Legislation could surely be passed, tax/welfare incentives could be adjusted to promote a healthier culture. Policing should increase (and the carrying out of the sentences, racial disparities be damned), drugs etc. should be kept out to the extent possible. Focus on literacy, mathematical ability, and so on seems reasonable, but whatever's going on with the schools is surely not working, so there needs to be a better plan than "dump more money at it."
Similarly affirmative action, etc. even if we decide that we need to have some sort of program to fix disparities, should be tested to see if they actually work. Do these programs cause (not correlate with) the children of the beneficiaries to have substantial better life outcomes? And if so, is it worth the negative externality of forming a stereotype of black incompetence? Worth the promotion of those who are best at exploiting whatever the grant systems are over those who are best at being productive?
Perhaps this depends on what you mean by meritocracy. Dropping of regulation would lead to a meritocracy, on average, in that, whoever is most fit for the position would get it. Perhaps it would miss those who were born with whatever capacity but do not currently have it. Then, should we push harder for a meritocracy for children?
The study on this topic that I'm familiar with also found that economic success of the children of pre-revolutionary elites was mediated by an expressed belief that "hard work is critical to success" (when it was controlled for the gap dropped by 75%) and that this expressed belief was in turn mediated by having a living parent. Among the children of pre-revolutionary elites whose parents were dead (and who thus were not raised by them), there was no significant difference in expressed belief from the general population.
I can't interpret the math for myself because I'm bad at statistics but the authors say:
This would actually seem to suggest cultural transmission rather than genetic.
Likewise (with the same caveat on my end that I'm bad at statistics) the authors of the study on the rebound of southern slaveholders after the Civil War which has been cited elsewhere in the thread claim:
(They end up concluding that social networking was the most important factor)
Thanks, that's good to know.
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