America Not Land of Opportunity?
Today, a shameful article claiming to prove that America is not a land of opportunity. The conclusions drawn from the data are so terribly warped, I hardly know where to begin.
To start, the authors completely confuse opportunity with outcome. The two are not the same; not even close. If you are sitting in a room with a sumptious buffet on the table, and half the people aren’t eating, do you complain that there is not enough food?
Next, they seem concerned that only a certain number of people can make it to the top 5% income bracket. I have news for them: by definition, the most you could ever have in that bracket is 5% of the population! I have more news: every person who gets put in that bucket displaces someone else. If you accept the authors’ premises, you would consider it to be good if the top 5% bracket loses everything periodically. That doesn’t sound like a land of opportunity to me; that sounds like a land of extraordinary risk and corruption. Opportunity is not a zero-sum game, where someone’s gain is someone else’s loss. A rising tide lifts all boats, etc.
Frankly, the authors seem to think that the ideal opportunity is represented by a Las Vegas casino. If the winnings are distributed randomly, it must be “fair”. But people don’t come to America for a shot at the jackpot (and get raked by the house). They come to America so they can keep what’s theirs without having to worry about bandits, corrupt governments, or capricious economic conditions taking it all away. That is the “opportunity” America represents.
Oh, and the study didn’t include immigrants.