Social Mobility is an interesting beast. Social scientists will say that having a large degree of mobility is tantamount to having a vigorous and dynamic society, one in which resources are appropriately spent chasing things which are good for society and in which there are not entrenched class divisions which lead to long-term inequalities.
While it is tempting to say that American society as a whole does not have structural inequality due to the relative fairness of the market system, we know for a fact that this is not precisely true. The article cited would have us believe that American market economics has created an almost “pay for access” system, in which the children of the wealthy have “first screw-up” opportunity. In other words, those seeking upward mobility tend to not get many second chances, while those seeking to avoid downward mobility are given numerous chances.
This is not inherently a bad thing. Depending on how you look at it, if all boats are rising, who cares if some are consistently higher than others? As long as legislation does not favor the creation of an entrenched class system (i.e. as long as a semi-permanent upper class does not use its enhanced influence over government to institutionalize itself), this may be a natural state of affairs. If, indeed, there is a genetic component to “talent”, and ultimately fitness for competition in society equates to reproductive fitness (or if talent marries talent), then over time it may be reasonable to expect speciation. In other words, the US might have lower social mobility now than other countries because Americans have traditionally had a much more level playing field than most other countries, and the effect of multiple generations of mobility has created “proper” classes. If one looks at the degree of mobility amongst first-and-second generation immigrants (new entrants to the American gene pool), one sees (anecdotally, at least), that it is in fact considerably higher than for families that have been here a few generations.
There is an obvious long-term remedy to issues of social mobility. Inflation, and a moderately large amount, is the single most powerful force that can impoverish idle wealth while enriching the poor and indebted. If we want more mobility in this country, we need to start inflating away the fortunes of the upper classes and the debts of the lower, to ensure that poverty is at best confined to a single generation only. Inflation forces continual reassessment of wages and incomes and mandates that the very wealthy invest their money in the most productive ways possible (because indeed they have the most to lose).
American Centrism 