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.

A similar case is made in even more specific terms by Gregory Clark, a professor of economics at the University of California in Davis. His new book, “The Son Also Rises”, tracks how certain elite surnames persist atop the social and economic hierarchy of most countries.

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