Thanks Glen, Yes, so mobility is going to be another problem word, since up, down, and sideways all contribute to how access to income works as a system.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Eric > On Aug 3, 2020, at 11:30 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: > > As always, I'm incompetent to respond. But I will anyway, of course, because > the Iron Front flag I've been flying has started 1 argument and received 3 > compliments (one back-handed), as well as 10s of perplexed dog-walkers who > stop, point, and flap their gums at each other. And I'd like to understand a > little more about the recent encroachment of fascism and state-communism and > the (more apparent lately) flaws in "late stage capitalism". > > EricS's gesture toward a deeper conception of "caste" smacks of the flailing > conversation I had with SteveS about "means of production". EricC's mobility > data (and his inferences therefrom) seem to me to wash away the particularity > of individuals, making an argument about replacability of workers, one with > another [♩], worker-into-owner [♪], owner-into-worker [♫], etc. > > It strikes me that the stickiness of income distributions and economic class > mobility could suffer (or be, entirely) the *side-effects* of some deeper > underlying dynamic. Lansing's kinship calculus might have been an interesting > tack. But my intuition matches what EricS suggests Wilkerson might be looking > for, that *our* system relies on an underclass of interchangeable > units/workers. To this extent, it IS the economic mobility that allows it to > persist even as the relative size of the pool of workers has shrunk [♭]. I.e. > because we're mobile, because we can change roles so fluidly, as the pool of > workers shrinks, the upperclass can get it's victims elsewhere. And this > seems to beg for some model like Turchin's cliodynamics [♮]. > > The sense that I have, with technology understood as some sort of *extended > phenotype*, is that our technological landscape co-evolves with our culture > (and with our biology, but the biology might move more slowly [♯]). So, could > the stickiness of the distribution(s) be a result of something like the > technological landscape? The emergence of something like airplanes or > supercomputers-in-one's-pocket might change the quality of the stickiness > entirely, right? I.e. the derived stats abstract out any information about > the underlying dynamic? > > And, of course, this goes right back to the thread that Whiteness is not > (merely) systemic racism. Perhaps it's more like "if you understand the game, > you can play it well", i.e. Whiteness is a technology, a tactic for winning > some near-zero-sum game. A black friend of mine is a master at it. When we > get drunk together, his game eventually breaks down and he feels the need to > *remind* me that he's black ... I think because sometimes he loses himself in > the game. I'm always ashamed because we always play *my* game ... even though > he's got more access to (and more facility with) the upperclass than I'll > ever have. That he's so much better at the game suggests maybe the *only* > reason I'm allowed to play at all is because of the color of my skin. > > > [♩] Thanks for the term "precariat"! > [♪] E.g. some of my programmer friends lucky enough to have excess income, > buying a new house to live in, then renting out their old house ... becoming > landlords. Or my psych prof friend who opened a brewery and hopes to graduate > from running everything to some sort of passive income. > [♫] Anyone with a near-significant portfolio who suffers a health crisis and > values life over assets, spends a huge sum to stay alive, then has to keep > working until they die. > [♭] Albeit with competing dimensions of population growth, automation, more > opportunity for the worker-to-owner path, more risk of the owner-to-worker > path, etc. > [♮] Though I doubt cliodynamics in its particulars. > [♯] And it may not, maybe the fast-evolving microorganisms (in our gut, on > our skin, in the soil, virii, etc.) actually dominate. It certainly seems > like it under this pandemic. > > On 7/31/20 11:01 PM, David Eric Smith wrote: >> So, Eric, at risk of asking a question I am not willing to make the effort >> to follow up (for the reason that I really _should_ be working and am over >> deadlines, but also too half-hearted), >> >> But I sort of would like to explore this question a little on the list. >> >> Here is the same woman who write the NYT piece. This time in the Guardian; >> I haven’t read this one, but given her theme, I expect I will find similar >> content. >> >> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2fworld%2f2020%2fjul%2f28%2funtouchables-caste-system-us-race-martin-luther-king-india%3futm_source%3dpocket-newtab&c=E,1,fmgmY16uEmUAckXPOl-6jYYcG9tQp2IrdGsYHr0y6U5V9tm0KRizn-jsKau2UZxrNHGM9eVaLuyLVNrhYSYlwVg2dCpRCTXM27bIZQiLqoFd9YE,&typo=1 >> >> Here was the NYT piece that I did read: >> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/magazine/isabel-wilkerson-caste.html >> >> I know why you say the US isn’t a caste system, and in the sense that it >> isn’t like India’s, yes, agreed. >> >> But I also understand what Wilkerson wants from the term. She wants to say >> the society is set up to need a permanent underclass, with limited and >> preferably little bargaining power, and preferably a relatively predictable >> group. That if our system as currently set up doesn’t have those, if it has >> fairer bargaining and less predictability, it can’t operate because it needs >> too much on unfair terms to support the structural commitments to wealth >> concentration, certain wasteful or profligate expenses, etc. >> >> And if I come back to caste, I think: how essential is it that a caste >> system be as well developed and as rigid as India’s has been for a long time? >> >> Nominally, Bali has the Hindu cast system copying the Indian form. If you >> go to a wedding, it looks like it does too. Husband can’t eat from the >> wife’s family’s table if it is a “marry up”, but the reverse is okay. So >> they have to have two ceremonies. And marrying up is allowed one for women, >> but not for met. And so forth. >> >> But I was in extended communication with Steve Lansing when he was doing >> Balinese genetic studies, having similars for India, and his result was that >> they are massively different. You can see caste lines respected strongly in >> Indian genetics. In Balinese, little, and if you didn’t constantly >> re-divide the population to keep track of short-term changes, you wouldn’t >> have a partition to track. So when push comes to shove, the Balinese marry >> who they want to marry, and they keep the caste system to some degree and >> with context dependence. >> >> For mobility data, I wish I had a record of the various talks I have >> attended or articles I have read claiming that social mobility has dropped >> severely over the past five decades. I am glad to have your Brookings data >> below, and should have looked it up myself. But what then is the data >> source for people making the claim that it has been dropping? I don’t think >> they are nuts or liars. Maybe ideological to some degree, but short of >> ideologues. >> >> I also tried to do some work with Duncan Foley a few years ago (like 15) on >> income distributions, and where the exponential x powerlaw form in the US >> and elsewhere comes from. An easy explanation would be random mixing from >> an output stream (income-generating capacity) with a constraint for wage >> earners, and some less obvious multiplicative process for the investor class >> (though that is not conceptually simple, despite hack approaches that treat >> it that way). I was interested to not only match the distribution, but also >> track mobility figures, to make a “Green’s function” for the diffusion >> process that underlies that kind of mixing model. Duncan put a student on >> it for maybe a year, and reported back that the diffusion model that would >> fit the stationary distribution was wildly inconsistent with the >> time-trajectories of family portfolios, because they were much too sticky. >> We didn’t publish it, because it was never a thorough enough result, and we >> couldn’t get a model >> that _did_ account for both aspects of the data. But again it was a claim >> that the apparent mixing by one signature was larger than what could be >> directly observed. >> >> I have the impression — now admitting that I have no method to be careful — >> that there were a few decades from the mid-60s through the early 80s, when >> many programs created an escape hatch for a significant segment of the black >> population into the middle class. This is Michelle Obama’s generation, and >> as I read her memoire I see the combination of the various programs I went >> through in all the same years, with various specific programs that made them >> available to her in Chicago where otherwise they would not have been. I >> feel like that window has significantly closed. The ones who got through it >> are today’s relatively comfortable, relatively safe middle class (such as it >> survives secondo E. Warren), and the ones who didn’t as it started to close >> are the growing precariat. Am I completely wrong in having this impression? >> The shouting is so loud from the shouters that I don’t know what a balanced >> reading is. >> >> I thought I caught an echo of that in the McWhorter book review that Glen >> forwarded, which I liked, and I have read McWhorter on linguistics since >> probably 15 years ago and liked him. Somewhere in there, and I forget on >> exactly which point, he objects to the arguments that are part of his larger >> claim of condescension, that they provide cover to those who want to claim >> affirmative action doesn’t work. I think he came up through my generation >> too, and I wonder if his awareness of the detailed results of opportunity >> programs is one of the things we are hearing. >> >> Anyway, one could stop and make this a career, and I won’t and can’t. But >> it would be nice to resolve what seem to me like considerably contradictory >> claims around mobility. >> >> Thanks, >> >> Eric >> >> >> >> >> >>> On Jul 31, 2020, at 8:19 PM, Eric Charles <eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>> Discussions of social mobility are odd. I understand that many countries >>> have more than the U.S., but whenever I see actual numbers, the mobility >>> seems pretty reasonable on average, and we are far from a caste system. If >>> you scroll down here can see data from Pew data from 2015 (in the right >>> part of the 2nd and 3rd graph). Of those in the bottom 20% at the start, >>> less than half are there in adulthood, 4% have made it all the way to the >>> top 20%. The numbers are similar going in the opposite direction: Of those >>> in the top 20% at the start, less than half are there in adulthood, with 8% >>> having dropped all the way to the bottom 20%. >>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.brookings.edu%2fblog%2fsocial-mobility-memos%2f2016%2f01%2f12%2fhow-much-social-mobility-do-people-really-want%2f&c=E,1,kj3n0AfEj1mn1qnXawVdaOw4yPPnHyLKxnjxkc2mHsE89qvnProST3jGKe3ULoeBwev_0dxOu7GVCyGELW2RSFX8hQ-NZshdy9kZJh00WU_s5O-ESgWXKKuc4g,,&typo=1 >>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.brookings.edu%2fblog%2fsocial-mobility-memos%2f2016%2f01%2f12%2fhow-much-social-mobility-do-people-really-want%2f&c=E,1,wARI_Rqqmjsngze-BCXF4KQDiF733j4KuqciluS8XPutBUIXdS_fVNj1wthNnK1s-k6yHVmIh8LbT_IDtcBGQ84ea9OolTDdjXs-Zuddzjc,&typo=1> >>> >>> >>> As I understand actual caste systems, the number who go from the bottom >>> rung to the top rung in a generation should be easily roundable to 0%. >>> >>> There are definitely racial differences not captured in that data, and I >>> have seen some studies showing outcomes for African Americans at about half >>> the national averages (so we could infer that in the above data set only 2% >>> of Afircan Americans would make it from the bottom quintile to the top >>> quintile). This presentation shows the differences between races better: >>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.brookings.edu%2fblog%2fup-front%2f2019%2f02%2f14%2fno-room-at-the-top-the-stark-divide-in-black-and-white-economic-mobility%2f&c=E,1,SlInuonkKU34qLsjErzPXuU7bNbsBPbOkLFt1WR2bom9RYJEr0d-qMpZnKiS5t_XXrWEhavVaiK2SwH0Zt7NAD4mSP5xe80XU0O3rfcwNSV59xfMlKK1EFzjZQ,,&typo=1 >>> >>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.brookings.edu%2fblog%2fup-front%2f2019%2f02%2f14%2fno-room-at-the-top-the-stark-divide-in-black-and-white-economic-mobility%2f&c=E,1,jgCmupDNPtblowoirtdwRknBZ-uxnjh2mXu2LQunKxCCbTmGtRZ9jGsjBpITdXYcccmbqzpMz6abD05eVhuJ1clDpPGDRMQhJzvUB-l_NckM99o,&typo=1> >>> It shows that white children from the bottom quintile are 45% less >>> likely to end up in the top quintile than would be expected at totally >>> random chance. In contrast, African >>> American children from the bottom quintile are 85% less likely to end up in >>> the top quintile than would be expected at totally random chance. >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 10:50 PM David Eric Smith <desm...@santafe.edu >>> <mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>> wrote: >>> >>> Here I think we have to ask Ta-Nehisi Coates, and simply accept whatever >>> he says, making a good-faith effort to not pick nits in the sentences out >>> of context, but to engage with the causal picture he argues at the system >>> level. >>> >>> One part of the argument is: Whiteness is a myth (both figuratively and >>> in the more analytical sense). It is fluid and opportunistic, and >>> constantly reconfigured to maintain and concentrate power structures. So >>> there is no real intrinsic to it; it is only instrumental and must be >>> understood in that functional way. >>> >>> The other part of it, which looks opposite if nitpicked, would be: You >>> don’t get to claim there is no white and therefore you have it as tough as >>> everybody else. There are real oppressed and real oppressors, and if you >>> are in the group that contains the oppressors, then you are an oppressor, >>> whether you want to think of yourself that way or not. The oppressed don’t >>> get to opt out of their group, so neither do you. So it’s not _all that_ >>> fluid, or at least not fluid in a way that would let you off the hook. >>> >>> There was a nice article in the NYT about two weeks ago (or three?), >>> arguing that the US is in important ways a caste society first and >>> foremost, and that race is recruited as an instrument to define and >>> implement caste. I find the logic of that argument both plausible in mind >>> and viscerally appropriate in experience. It also gets around the >>> awkwardnesses of language in talking about whether “whiteness” is or is not >>> fluid, to whom and for what purposes, because caste is a language >>> specifically about the implementation of power, so it is automatically >>> functionalist. >>> >>> However, tread carefully: I hear Bernie saying what in essence is the >>> same thing — maybe because I know something about the historical data on >>> social mobility through Sam Bowles over years at SFI, and those who start >>> trapped also stay trapped when everybody is trapped, so mechanistically I >>> hear that part of Bernie’s characterization as correct — and yet a very >>> large majority of black voters did not think Bernie was their ally. I >>> don’t know if they disfavored him for the same reasons I preferred others >>> (by quite a lot) to him, or for completely different reasons such as >>> hearing him as denying that race oppression is a problem. In the small bit >>> of his heavily repetitive rhetoric that I heard, I never heard that, but >>> I’m not black and I didn’t listen to it all with fine attention, so what I >>> did or didn’t hear doesn’t count. >>> >>> Once the society is full of mines, it doesn’t matter where you walk, you >>> are going to lose a leg. So probably best to accept that everybody is in >>> the same boat, and be on each other’s side trying to get to something >>> better. >>> >>> Eric > > -- > ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,P9RDHysAcqE1NU2CAN4xHLebyoepqppspox8e8Cnj0wa4Zquc1srp6nafiKjP3Lp1vZb00TYzGv8T-otjO2rzbW-SobyX-35XJFo08deflwZEA,,&typo=1 > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,SJZTTuue4UWysue1fy8o3QJp8F2Jr-UMtT1Mkz6sQUcJDKkCbM-dB75HcC3qZ-5pFD6YAkXvEeStTseHc_kjwBBDp7U4IPHHA-9rreHf6mc,&typo=1 > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . 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