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Reddit mentions of The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)

Sentiment score: 3
Reddit mentions: 6

We found 6 Reddit mentions of The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World). Here are the top ones.

The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
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Found 6 comments on The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World):

u/SomeGuy58439 · 27 pointsr/slatestarcodex

How class in China became politically incorrect

> “It’s just not trendy to talk about class,” says Sydney University political scientist Guo Yingjie, who has met with resistance — even from mainland academics — to his research on the topic. Talking about class is neither politically safe, nor politically correct, “It’s a dirty word. It’s almost something that many academics in China think is irrelevant.”

> Such a strategy is underlined by the messages propagated through the state-run media, according to Wanning Sun, a media scholar from the University of Technology, Sydney. “If you want to get rid of class struggle discourse, one way the party has done this is to promote consumption so people get a sense of hope,” Sun says. “An ideology of hope — the neoliberal discourse — has taken root. Neoliberalism doesn’t like class discourse. As long as you find your position in the market, you’ll be fine.” In this way, class has become defined by consumption, and in some cases, conspicuous consumption.

...

> Research by the University of Sydney’s David Goodman has found that around 84% of today’s elite are direct descendants of the elite from pre-1949. This suggests that six decades of Communism may not have a dramatic impact upon the elites, who have the advantage of decades of capital accumulation — including economic, cultural and social capital — which have apparently continued to benefit them under the party-state system.

The research mentioned in the last paragraph reminds me of Gregory Clark's book.

u/AppleShark · 3 pointsr/TrueReddit

That is not true. Historically it took 10-15 generations for wealth to dissipate. Source: https://www.amazon.com/The-Son-Also-Rises-Princeton/dp/0691162549

u/sukagambar · 2 pointsr/indonesia

Just finished these 2:

"The Son Also Rises" by Gregory Clark. No it's not a cheap imitation of Hemingway's. It's a book written by Economic Historian Gregory Clark. His main argument is that socioeconomic mobility is much slower than expected. He uses a new method to analyze this. Specifically he uses surname analysis. Which has the advantage being able to reach back further in time. Current method only able to reach back 3-4 generations. With surnames you could trace 10-15 generations or more.

Clark found out that socioeconomic mobility is indeed very slow and largely immune to government social policy. Surnames which were elite 10-15 generations ago are still elite today although less elite than in the past. So there is indeed social mobility downward but it is slow.

Clark uses the surname analysis method for England, Sweden, India, Japan, and China. For China he has to use rare surnames only. So this means his findings is correct across all cultures, not just Western cultures.

How do we increase the rate of socioeconomic mobility? Clark said only 1 thing seem to work: exogamous marriage (marriage between SES class). Unfortunately some society discourage this practice and prefer endogamous marriage instead. He gave example India as a society which practice endogamous marriage. As a consequence he said "India is a uniquely immobile society". He doesn't see India changing anytime soon. Based on data he collected from Indian matrimonial website Brahmin still prefers to date other Brahmin. In short SES mobility is low everywhere but India's is extremely low/non-existent.

That brings me to my own observation. The Chinese-Indonesians form an economic elite. Most of the time they only marry their own (ie. endogamous marriage). This is primarily because of religion. Based on Clark's theory I predict they will remain economic elite. This one is my own prediction not Clark's

However Clark did mention similar situation as the Chinese-Indonesian which happens in Egypt among their Coptic Christian minority. The Coptic Christian is better educated and have higher income than the rest of Egypt. Clark suspect this happens because of jizya tax (ie extra tax that non-muslim must pay). Jizya tax means most of the convert to Islam were lower class families. Upper class families remain Christian. Egypt was strongly Christian before the Arab invasion. After they converted lower class Muslim families no longer intermarry with upper class Christian families. Hence the muslim stopped rising in SES. Nowadays Egypt no longer have Jizya tax BUT their religion still forbids intermarriage so the SES status of the Coptic is fossilized at the upper level.

One last thing and maybe most controversial. Clark said the mechanism with which social status is passed down from parents to offspring is suspicicously similar to genetic mechanism. Hence that's why he recommends the only sure fire way to make sure your descendants are successful is to marry successful person from successful families. So not only your spouse must be successful his/her family must also be successful. If your spouse is successful BUT her family is not then most likely she is a one-off success. But if her family is also successful then that's how you know that she comes from a long line of successful people and most likely to produce successful offspring.

All in all Clark's book remind me of Javanese saying "Bibit, Bebet, Bobot". "Bibit" means your spouse must be bibit unggul (ie comes from successful family). "Bobot" means your spouse must be successful on her own. I don't know what Bebet means. This shows once again that we still have a lot to learn from tradtiional wisdom.



u/Novokuv · 2 pointsr/GCSE

My brother has around 15 books on business and economics. I plan on reading them but also ordering

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Son-Also-Rises-Surnames-Princeton/dp/0691162549/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464470016&sr=8-1&keywords=surnames+economics

A book about how surnames are derived from wealth. I find it intriguing but also because I want to do it for an EPQ :p

There are other books: Freakonomics, The Intelligent Investor, etc

u/grinnbearit · 1 pointr/Economics

There is the Son Also Rises which covers the subject.

The top review gave me a TLDR of the book

u/allmybeard · 1 pointr/DebateDE

Well you're speaking about stereotypes and other nebulous crap. How about showing some data? There is lots of literature surrounding the correlation of IQ and socioeconomic status/income/etc. I suggest you look into it.

And by the way, regarding the stereotype in China that "people don't stay rich for more than 3 generations:" well, I think you're wrong. Again, there's been a lot of research into historical levels of social mobility and generally what we find is that these levels tend to stay very low, both throughout history and between cultures. Here's some relevant reading