I’ve been interested a lot of late in how folk make sense of the inequalities in our system and how we all arrived where we are. Of particular interest for me has always been the role of race in mitigating situational/structural/environmental explanations of poverty/disadvantage among those who identify as white. The race element of that whole discussion is something for another day…
I’ve long been fond of the NYT special edition on “How Class Works”- and there are some data there that speak to some of the above mentioned concern. Namely, when one follows the link below, then to the “A Nationwide Poll” tab, then to the “What it takes to get ahead..” link on the left, something interesting is revealed.
While the value of education and hard work seems to be fairly evenly distributed across income categories, those making over $150,000 a year are the least likely to agree that intergenerational wealth transmission or social connections have any impact on how one gets ahead in life. Also, They are the most likely to attribute success to “Natural Ability”. To be direct, for the rich, it is not who they know or who their parents were, but it is all about their own talent and hard work. The strength of this kind of attribution of the reasons for success seem to be particularly strong for the wealthy.
While we do not have (quickly accessible) corresponding data for suppositions about how or why one does poorly, we can imagine similar patterns of attribution. Those with power and privilege see primarily individual agency as the reason for life chances much more than others. While this is what one familiar with research of stratification and inequality might expect, these data make the case pretty clearly- and in plain- as they say- black and white. Taken alone these data might just be the odd curiosity of a Sociologist, but when we take into account what we also know about where wealth really comes from- namely that most wealth in the world is still inherited rather than earned, and that access to social networks of power and prestige are still at least as important as formal education in gaining opportunity and wealth, one is left with a very interesting picture of the wealthy in the US. Interesting, indeed.