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The persistence of privilege


Statistically, social status is more likely to be inherited over generations than height.

Some 150 years ago, a Prussian named Ernst Haeckel who sought to spread knowledge of evolution in Germany coined the theory that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”.

That marvelous piece of jargon meant that a single being develops according to more ancient – in this case genetic – structures and rules. The theory remains in a lot of textbooks, though modern geneticists have largely discarded it. But the idea that the past never ends remains strong. Indeed, Thomas Piketty’s 2014 bestselling study, “Capital in the 21st Century”, makes the same argument again, claiming that capital inherently grows faster than the rest of the economy, which can only lead to a future where patrimonial dynasties eventually own everything.

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