Affluenza - How to be successful and stay sane by Oliver James

Author:Oliver James [James, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2013-04-17T04:00:00+00:00

In theory, in the developed world, meritocracy was supposed to be the royal road to upward mobility. In particular, it was supposed to be the driver of female emancipation and the means by which low-income people could, through merit alone, gain access to power, status and wealth. In practice, there has been remarkably little progress for the poor, and the gains made by women are debatable – some studies suggest that a woman is far likelier to become very rich by marriage than through her occupation. Wherever I went, I was shocked to find how small a part merit really played in success.

In America it has long been claimed that anyone can be president, although it is doubtful that many believe it. The reality is that it helps an awful lot if, like George W. Bush, your dad was the president before last. About one-third of the American population are incredibly unlikely ever to ascend from the relative poverty that governs their life. In England, there has been no increase in upward mobility through education since 1970. Although the proportion of children entering further education rose from one in eight in 1979, to one in three in 1991 and is now approaching 40 per cent, the vast majority of the new graduates are from middle-class families. The same is true throughout the English-speaking world. In Singapore, although merit becomes significant once you are a member of the elite, a strict system of old school tie credentials still governs who gets a chance to join. It is virtually impossible to gain access to the primary schools that feed the secondary schools that feed the universities unless one of your parents attended them. True, the system's authoritarianism forces the children to be good little examinees. As long ago as 1995, an international survey revealed that Singaporean thirteen-year-olds scored 79 per cent of maths questions correctly. The international average was 55 per cent, with Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland and France all reaching higher standards than England's could-do-better 53 per cent. The statistics for science were similar, and have continued to be so in more recent years. But at what price? In Russia, the system is even more nepotistic. Who you know – through your kinship network – is crucial. One mother there explained to me that if you are part of the elite, you can even use it to get better grades in public examinations. She knew of several cases in which children had performed too badly to gain entry to schools and to universities, and where family contacts had been used to simply get someone within the educational hierarchy to change the grades given to the children.

Of course, compared with Victorian times there are now far greater opportunities for the poor and for women to be upwardly socially mobile. But we are a very large distance from the meritocratic ideal. The great majority of people's educational and subsequent career achievements reflect their class of origin far more than their individual efforts. Most interesting

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