There was a time that neighbourhoods were far more socioeconomically integrated, though the poor tended to live either above or below (basement apartments) the wealthy.
(Hight gained status with the introduction of lifts.)
Though on balance those times were far less class-blind, or soceoeconomically mobile, thanmuch of the20h-21st centuries.
Yes, because one class of people, determined predominantly by birth (race, gender, genetic advantages at skills in short supply), get to choose where they live, and are served by another class of people who have to live far away and spend their already discounted time commuting, who can’t afford the very thing they work to provide the upper castes.
Not caste advantages but earned? That’s like saying a 7 foot tall athletically gifted person earned the wealth those innate attributes gave him in an NBA career.
There’s certainly a perspective where everyone’s equal and nobody deserves anything. The 7 foot basketball player would play worse if he wasn’t born tall; the Stanford valedictorian would score less if she wasn’t born smart.
That doesn’t seem like a productive way to look at this kind of inequality issue. If some places to live are better than others, not everyone can have the best.
That’s why I said “somewhat better“. But ask 100 black persons how much mobility they have, and see how many say “I have completed mobility, race doesn’t matter. White supremacy is a myth.” Or the brown people who wash your restaurant dishes, mow yours SV lawns and clean your SV office toilets. Sure, many are immigrants who come here because they have more opportunities than where they came from, but that’s moving up a rung in the caste system, not escaping it. Even the liberal essays I read advocating more immigration or amnesty say things like “Who else will pick our fruit?”. I cringe and am ashamed for us every time I read something like that.
Even in India in theory you have mobility, as the country has tried to address it the same way America has tied to correct a history of racism: caste-based discrimination is illegal, and there is affirmative action / quotas to correct imbalances. But just as here, where 150 years after the Civil War and 50 years after MLK we have a racially stratified society, so the problem persists in India.
Comments
Having to commute because the real estate market prices you out is the same as a caste system?
There was a time that neighbourhoods were far more socioeconomically integrated, though the poor tended to live either above or below (basement apartments) the wealthy.
(Hight gained status with the introduction of lifts.)
Though on balance those times were far less class-blind, or soceoeconomically mobile, thanmuch of the20h-21st centuries.
Win some, lose some.
Yes, because one class of people, determined predominantly by birth (race, gender, genetic advantages at skills in short supply), get to choose where they live, and are served by another class of people who have to live far away and spend their already discounted time commuting, who can’t afford the very thing they work to provide the upper castes.
Not caste advantages but earned? That’s like saying a 7 foot tall athletically gifted person earned the wealth those innate attributes gave him in an NBA career.
There’s certainly a perspective where everyone’s equal and nobody deserves anything. The 7 foot basketball player would play worse if he wasn’t born tall; the Stanford valedictorian would score less if she wasn’t born smart.
That doesn’t seem like a productive way to look at this kind of inequality issue. If some places to live are better than others, not everyone can have the best.
But isn't the caste system marked by lack of mobility, in terms of the ability to transcend your caste?
That’s why I said “somewhat better“. But ask 100 black persons how much mobility they have, and see how many say “I have completed mobility, race doesn’t matter. White supremacy is a myth.” Or the brown people who wash your restaurant dishes, mow yours SV lawns and clean your SV office toilets. Sure, many are immigrants who come here because they have more opportunities than where they came from, but that’s moving up a rung in the caste system, not escaping it. Even the liberal essays I read advocating more immigration or amnesty say things like “Who else will pick our fruit?”. I cringe and am ashamed for us every time I read something like that.
Even in India in theory you have mobility, as the country has tried to address it the same way America has tied to correct a history of racism: caste-based discrimination is illegal, and there is affirmative action / quotas to correct imbalances. But just as here, where 150 years after the Civil War and 50 years after MLK we have a racially stratified society, so the problem persists in India.