Conor Friedersdorf has an interesting book review in the Atlantic. The article is called “The Cult of Smartness: How Meritocracy is Failing America,” and it is based on a book by Chris Hayes called Twilight of The Elites: America After Meritocracy. The premise of the article and book is that the country’s elite have a strangle hold on power and because they control the means, they can manipulate the ends so that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer – especially in regard the institutions of society & education. Here’s a sample paragraph:
“In his [Hayes] telling, that’s one example of the “Cult of Smartness” that has taken hold in American life, a pathology characterized by the mistaken assumption that intelligence is an ordinal quality — that it is possible for observers to accurately rank intelligent people in order from most to least smart, and that the right person for a job is always the one deemed smartest. “While smartness is necessary for competent elites,” Hayes retorts, “it is far from sufficient: wisdom, judgment, empathy, and ethical rigor are all as important, even if those traits are far less valued.” Throughout Twilight of the Elites, the reader is presented with similarly specific, thoughtful critiques of what’s gone wrong with America’s ruling class. The elites who run things, having advanced to the top of various hierarchies, are performing miserably, Hayes argues, citing failures as varied as Enron, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, the Catholic Church molestation scandal, the financial crisis, and the steroid scandal in Major League Baseball.”
- Write simple regulations that the rich’s lawyers can’t work around
- End the war on drugs – the most blatant example of punishing poor & not rich
- Do away with professional licensing laws & give poor access to professions
- Tax test prep (SAT, ACT, GRE, etc.), use funds to scholarship poor to test prep
- Move the Supreme Court out of Washington; transition to an e-congress and force House members to spend all of their time in their districts.
- Stop subsidizing college tuition – take all that money divide it equally among High School Seniors and allow them to use it for college, trade school, professional development of any kind.
- Stop subsidizing mortgages.
- Mandate public radio and television seek programming feedback from the meek & lowly.
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