Whoops, forgot to mention the parents you were born to. If they're higher class or just plain old spend more resources on you, society winds up letting you get more stuff.
Having more money allows you to make mistakes. Having rich parents allow you to make mistakes that are normally unrecoverable for normal people (e.g. going to college and getting kicked out), because money buys you opportunities.
Inheritance is just like caste, you are born with an advantage over others.
People with wealthy parents are more likely to be wealthy later in life. People who perform wage labor and do not have inheritances will not have as much wealth.
More news at 11, thank you for attending my TED Talk.
It definitely contributes to a lack of social mobility. If you are competing with others for zero-sum access to the upper reaches of society and they get substantial assistance from their parents then you don't have as much of a fair chance.
The question becomes - how much of a factor does it play? I would think less than the intangible but non material benefits of having higher income parents (your upbringing, the lessons learned from your parents, their professional connections, a safety net that lets you take risk) but more than I would like to have admitted to myself a decade ago.
reply