Skip to main content

The Overclass

Charles Murray, the libertarian sociologist, is well-known (notorious in some quarters) for his work on the underclass.  Coming Apart, his new book, out at the end of this month, focuses on the troubling phenomenon of the overclass in the United States.  Here is an excerpt from a Daily Telegraph article on Murray's new book:

Murray exposes how the new United States upper class, which he labels a “cognitive elite”, has developed an hereditary stranglehold over the top professions and management positions. The brightest people tend to marry each other, then ensure that their offspring get to the best schools and universities, with the result that, to quote Murray: “The parents of the upper-middle class now produce a disproportionate number of the smartest children.”

These gilded families then inter-marry and socialise together, living in the same areas, creating a phenomenon which Murray labels “super zips” – the 800-plus richest and most desirable postal codes in the United States, where the cleverest and richest congregate. What Versailles was to 18th-century France, these smart postcodes are to 21st-century America – a sure sign of a sclerotic social system and long-term decline.
Murray argues that the emergence of this “hereditary” elite has smashed the bonds of United States society. An essential part of the American myth was the idea that any child, however poor and disadvantaged, could rise to the very top. But those avenues of advancement are now being closed off.

This is only partly because the new elite has cornered the market in the best jobs and universities. More insidiously still, the American dream is being killed by the collapse of the work ethic, allied to the collapse of faith and family values, in lower-class areas. Half a century ago, young men and women were encouraged to escape from poverty through ambition and hard work: now they embrace welfare and helplessness as a way of life.


Popular posts from this blog

Bitcoin Bubble?

According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money.   George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here .  Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.

How Valuable Are Connections?

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, Amir Kermani, James Kwak and Todd Mitton have written a paper on whether firms connected to Timothy Geithner benefited from these connections. They do so by looking at how stocks of these firms reacted to the announcement that he was a nominee for Treasury Secretary in November 2008. They find that there were large abnormal returns for connected firms. Below is the paper's abstract and the full paper is available here . The announcement of Timothy Geithner as nominee for Treasury Secretary in November 2008 produced a cumulative abnormal return for financial firms with which he had a connection. This return was about 6% after the first full day of trading and about 12% after ten trading days. There were subsequently abnormal negative returns for connected firms when news broke that Geithner's confirmation might be derailed by tax issues. Excess returns for connected firms may reflect the perceived impact of relying on the advice of a small ne...

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles, co-authored with my colleague Will Quinn , is forthcoming in August. It is published by Cambridge University Press and is available for pre-order at Amazon , Barnes and Noble , Waterstones and Cambridge University Press .