Poor becoming rich

Reader comment on: Rags to Riches

Submitted by J. Johnson (United States), Apr 22, 2010 10:08

You say "a lot of the rich used to be poor." I'd be more inclined to believe this if there were statistics rather than anecdotes. Harvard's Christoper Jencks researched this sort of thing thoroughly for his landmark book, "Inequality," and found conclusively that the single best indicator of an individual's future economic success was the occupation of the individual's father. No doubt there are many individuals who are rich and began from humble circumstances, however as a percentage of the total number of rich people I suspect they are a very small percentage. Capitalism is indeed the best engine ever devised for upward mobility. Unfortunately, that fact has been used to justify some government policies, especially tax policies, that enrich some of those who are already very rich and explode the deficit as a result.

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