Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
So it's important to consider what equality of opportunity means and which countries and societies best exemplify what you mean by that. Some might argue that the United States is the best example of that in action. On the other hand, if one goes by social and economic mobility within a society, then Scandinavian social democracies seem to do the best job at providing an environment where people can succeed from varying backgrounds, while a place like the US is probably the worst in that respect among rich nations.
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Yes, the U.S. and UK have less equality of opportunity than Canada or Sweden. It's mainly down to the degree to which parental income affects the educational attainment of children in the former.
However, the increasing emphasis on identity politics hurts efforts to address this. Lack of economic mobility hurts the poor, regardless of race. Addressing it would help the poor, regardless of race. But racial injustice gets far more attention in the U.S. (and increasingly in Canada), by an order of magnitude, than the lack of economic mobility. More attention in politics. More attention in the media. More attention in pop culture. For some reason, a narrative of white oppressing people of colour is more emotionally engaging to a lot of people than a narrative of the wealthy and upper-middle class stifling opportunities for the working class and poor.
I've seen commentators in the UK, where they have always had a much stronger tradition of recognizing class in politics, suggest that identity politics is in fact a cynical ploy by the wealthy to keep the working class at each other's throats, rather than recognizing their common interests. I wouldn't go that far. But it seems pretty clear to me that the emphasis on race and gender, and the deep divisions it's cleaving in society, is making it harder, not easier, to address the lack of economic mobility.