{"id":1245,"date":"2011-12-23T19:20:07","date_gmt":"2011-12-24T03:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/?p=1245"},"modified":"2011-12-23T20:44:42","modified_gmt":"2011-12-24T04:44:42","slug":"equality-of-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/1245","title":{"rendered":"Equality of Opportunity?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:30px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/archives\/1245\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"recommend\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">a<\/span><br \/>\nThe following is a quick letter I contributed to the online forum of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/report-on-business\/economy\/economy-lab\/daily-mix\/us-inequality-doesnt-have-to-be-the-wests-road-map\/article2281847\/\" target=\"_blank\">Globe and Mail<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>____________<\/p>\n<p>One of the great challenges to North America&#8217;s dominant political narrative is that it doesn&#8217;t actually believe in &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/equal-opportunity\/\" target=\"_blank\">equality of opportunity<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p>If one doubts my contention, simply review the attempts <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/ps110\/special.htm#1\" target=\"_blank\">here in Canada<\/a> to introduce a <em>very<\/em> modest inheritance tax. The elites lash out immediately, and their friends in corporate media start drumming the beat of &#8220;liberty before taxes!&#8221; in almost perfect unison. Or take a look at the numerous recent studies that show that <a href=\"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/ps110\/richdaddy.html\" target=\"_blank\">income mobility<\/a> (or the ability to rise above one&#8217;s station in life) is increasingly weak in Canada, and even worse in the USA (a.k.a. the land of opportunity).<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, public education, given its narrow mandate and increasingly distressed status, simply<a href=\"http:\/\/educationnext.org\/the-mystery-of-good-teaching\/\" target=\"_blank\"> isn&#8217;t enough to address the imbalance<\/a>. As a result, the massive disparity simply does not allow the children of the bottom quintile to have the same opportunities as children lucky enough to be born into the top quintile.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps Karl Marx will one day be vindicated: Inequality just isn&#8217;t immoral or (most laughably) inefficient. It is a crippling tendency built right into the DNA of capitalism, as is the need for big business to use government to avoid competition and taxes. Will DNA = destiny?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>a The following is a quick letter I contributed to the online forum of the Globe and Mail: ____________ One of the great challenges to North America&#8217;s dominant political narrative is that it doesn&#8217;t actually believe in &#8220;equality of opportunity&#8220;. If one doubts my contention, simply review the attempts here in Canada to introduce a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,7,8,9,16],"tags":[35,22,37,119],"class_list":["post-1245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-politics","category-bc-politics","category-canadian-politics","category-economic-issues","category-education","category-media","tag-economics","tag-education-2","tag-inequality","tag-opportunity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1251,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions\/1251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lexiconic.net\/wheatfromthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}