The Meritocracy

Most us like our facts to be convenient for our theories and for ourselves. Rich people tend to think they deserve to be rich, even if their only contribution to the situation was a judicious choice of womb.

Libertarians, it seems, like to see proof that this is the best of all possible worlds and that a meriotocracy arises by magic. Consequently, the following graph excited the libertarian economocracy.


Proof positive, said they, that genetics rulz! Alex Tabbarok of Marginal Revolution reviews the bidding and finds that Dr. Pangloss was right: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/08/the-inheritance-of-education.html

Into this libertarian paradise comes Mike Konczal of Rortybomb, who looks at the details and finds enough unnoted biases in the data to blow the theories to the moon: http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/genes-and-income/

Another dumb theory slain, or at least greviously wounded, by nasty facts.

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