Why Progress and Upward Mobility should be the goal, not Equality
It is both achievable and it does more to benefit the poor, working class, and racial minorities.
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In my last article, I made the case that the goal of Equality of Outcome is:
Unachievable
The quest to do so will cause far more harm than good.
I also mentioned that there are far better goals both from a pragmatic and moralistic standpoint. Those goals are Progress and Upward Mobility.
In this article, I will go into much more detail on these concepts.
See more articles on Upward Mobility:
Why Progress and Upward Mobility should be the goal, not Equality (this article)
Note: I will also publish a large number of excerpts on Substack from my forthcoming book: Upward Mobility: A Radical New Agenda to Uplift the Poor and Working Class. These excerpts are only available to paid subscribers.
Other books in my “From Poverty to Progress” book series:
The alternative to Equality: Progress
For some, the impossibility of achieving Equality means that we are all doomed to suffer in poverty. Karl Marx certainly believed that, and many others on the Left appear to agree (though I think they actually know that this is not true).
There is an alternative to Inequality within poverty. The alternative to poverty is Progress, which is the focus of my book series and this Substack column. In my From Poverty to Progress book series, I use the following definition:
“Progress is the sustained improvement in the material standard-of-living of a large group of people over a long period of time.“
Note that this definition has nothing to do with equality or inequality. It is possible for the vast majority of people in a society to experience an increasing material standard of living while inequality keeps increasing. It is also possible for them to do so with declining inequality, though Scheidel’s book gives evidence that this is unlikely.
Equality should not be the goal, because it is unachievable without extraordinarily negative side-effects. Continuing progress, or to be more accurate “human material progress” should be the goal.
Progress is not only achievable, but the evidence is overwhelming that it has already been achieved. We just need to keep it going and include more people in it. This includes developing nations as well as the poor and working class in wealthy nations.
Because progress is not zero-sum, more people experiencing it have no negative effect on others. Indeed, it is likely that the more people who experience progress, the more it benefits everyone else.
Progress already exists
Progress has been in existence for almost 800 years. Since a little after 1200, material progress has gradually spread across the globe as societies have established the Five Keys to Progress. And since 1990, this progress has spread to the majority of humanity.
Once the Five Keys are established, a society becomes a vast decentralized problem-solving network where people naturally create progress out of their daily behavior. All we need to do is not accidentally undermine the Five Keys to Progress. In short, we need to make promoting long-term, widely-shared economic growth our #1 goal in public policy.
How our current policies undermine Progress
Unfortunately, those who are trying to create equality, or at least lessening inequality, often unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) undermine the Five Keys to Progress.
These include:
Over-centralization of government, particularly the US federal government and the EU (which undermines the third key: Decentralized political, economic, religious, and ideological power.
Green energy policies (which undermine the fifth key: Widespread use of fossil fuels)
Green agricultural policies (which undermine the first key: A highly efficient food production and distribution system, particularly in developing nations)
Housing policies that force urban density. The result is to make housing unaffordable (which undermines the second key: Trade-based cities)
Government regulations and taxes (which undermine the fourth key: high-value-added industry that exports to the rest of the world.)
Promoting Progress
In my second book, Promoting Progress, I listed a number of fairly radical policy reforms to rebuild the foundations of progress and promote long-term widely-shared economic growth. I have included some of those proposals in this Substack column:
I advocate for a progress-based reform agenda to:
Create long-term economic growth in both wealthy nations and developing nations.
Make policy decisions based on results.
Reform the political system to make all of the above possible.
More specifically, I propose:
Reforming the electoral process to increase political competition between the parties.
Create an abundant, affordable, and secure energy system with a blend of natural gas, hydroelectric, and nuclear power and phase out Green energy subsidies and mandates
Making housing affordable by eliminating urban containment zones, excessive zoning, replacing property taxes with a land value tax, and founding Homestead cities on federal land
Help developing nations build competitive export industries
Identify the most effective government policies with the widespread use of randomized controlled trials
Promote technological innovation with innovation prizes and venture capital
and more
Most of these policies do not cost more money as they mainly consist of rolling back failed policies that unintentionally undermine the Five Keys to Progress or How Progress Works.
Promoting Upward Mobility
This does not mean that supporters of progress should not care about the distributional outcomes. In my second book, I wrote about how developing nations can more easily experience progress, but that still leaves out a significant percentage of people in wealthy nations.
My third book is tentatively entitled “Upward Mobility: A Radical New Agenda to Uplift the Working Class and Poor.” I will be publishing many excerpts from my book in the Substack column, although many of them will be available only to paid subscribers. In the future, I may publish the entire book to Substack.
My third book is based on the concept of Upward Mobility. Upward Mobility is to the individual what Progress is to the entire society. Upward Mobility is the long-term increase in the material standard of living of an individual, while Progress is the long-term increase in the material standard of living of a large group of people.
More specifically, I believe that government programs should be based on the following:
Promote long-term economic growth (which is the focus of my first two books).
Create a prosperous working class.
Promote a clear pathway that enables youths from low-income families to enter the prosperous working class.
Goal #1 is what I call “Promoting Progress,” the title of my second book. Goals #2 and #3 are what I call “Promoting Upward Mobility,” the goal of my third book. The latter two goals cannot be achieved without first accomplishing long-term economic growth.
Note that, unlike Equality, Upward Mobility is not zero-sum. If someone excels in their life and earns a high income, this undermines Equality, so it should be discouraged. But it enhances Upward Mobility, so it should be encouraged. But Upward Mobility is not focused on people who are already doing well and their children.
Upward Mobility is about enabling and encouraging young people to make wise life choices so they can take advantage of the progress that surrounds them to the best of their ability. In particular, the focus is on young people from poor and working-class families.
The concept of Upward Mobility is based on the following assumptions (many of these assumptions will be explained in greater detail in future articles):
Equality of Outcome is unachievable, while Equality of Opportunity is not enough.
Upward Mobility is not the same as Social Mobility. Social Mobility is about rank in income, wealth, social or educational characteristics. So by definition, if one person goes up, another person has to go down. Upward Mobility is about material standard of living, which can go up for everyone.
It is far easier for individuals to move up in their material standard of living if they live in a society that is experiencing Progress. In a stagnant society, Upward Mobility is a zero-sum struggle between individuals or nations. In a society experiencing progress, Upward Mobility is positive-sum. In other words. Upward Mobility by one individual helps us all.
Because all people indirectly benefit from the success of others, society has a vested interest in promoting Upward Mobility.
Living in a society that is experiencing Progress is necessary, but it is not sufficient for upward mobility for the individual. By definition, Progress is about a large percentage of people within a society, but that still potentially leaves behind a significant percentage of people. Those people typically are the poor, working class, and racial minorities.
An individual living in a society that is experiencing Progress must choose through their own actions to participate in the progress that surrounds them. It cannot be given to them (unless their family is rich and willing to support their children forever).
The abilities of a person vary greatly by genetics, family upbringing, individual values, culture, luck, and other factors, but very few of those factors make it impossible for a person to participate in the progress that surrounds them.
No amount of government social programs can substitute for that lack of participation. Therefore, government programs should reward and enable actions to help oneself, not unintentionally reward failure.
The age between 14 and 30 (which I call “youths” or “young people”) is a critical period in an individual’s life where one is required to make Life Choices about the following:
Education
Job Skills
Criminality and violence
Sexual activity and contraception
Relocation to regions with greater economic opportunities
Occupation and work effort in the occupation
Marriage
Having children and parenting
All youths, regardless of class, race, gender, and other demographic characteristics, are confronted with the same choices. The only exceptions are youths with very rich parents who are willing to support their children financially for their entire lives.
The above life choices made between the ages of 14 and 30 set young people on a “life trajectory” that determines the probability of achieving a relatively high material standard of living after age 30.
While there are no guarantees in life, making good life choices dramatically increases the chances of success compared to making bad life choices. No government programs can fully undo the damage to the individual and society that occurs from those bad choices.
Humans, particularly young people, often copy the behavior of the people around them. This means that it is far easier for youths from upper-income families to make the right choices than it is for youths from lower-income families.
Young people often fail to realize the full consequences of those choices so they need moral guidance from adults and institutions. We need a clear and realistic message, based on social science, that explains the importance of these life choices and how to make them correctly.
Many of these Life Choices also require money that young people, particularly those who come from lower-income families, do not have. Society has an incentive to not let those relatively small financial barriers lead to bad choices that affect all of society.
For progress to continue into future generations, a reasonable percentage of adults must have children, and we should put those children in the best possible position to promote Progress for society and Upward Mobility for themselves.
Though there are no guarantees in life, the government should ensure that adults who have made reasonable efforts on their own behalf should have a “living wage” regardless of their abilities.
This creates a social contract that society makes with young people: “If you make the right choices, we will ensure that you make a living wage for you and your family.” A minimum number of right choices should include:A full-time worker in the family
Marriage between the biological parents
Having children
See more articles on Upward Mobility:
Why Progress and Upward Mobility should be the goal, not Equality (this article)
Note: I will also publish a large number of excerpts on Substack from my forthcoming book: Upward Mobility: A Radical New Agenda to Uplift the Poor and Working Class. These excerpts are only available to paid subscribers.
Other books in my “From Poverty to Progress” book series:
Impressive. I really like the way you are framing mobility. This book sounds extremely important.
I suspect an emphasis on the non zero-sum nature of upward mobility as you describe it would help bring more of it about, faster. And help counter the arguments from Leftists/progressives about equality of opportunity only going to some favored class or group.
As you have indicated, pursuing equality of result drags everyone down eventually. But actions undertaken by individuals to achieve upward mobility do not hold others back. By accepting or admitting that inequality has existed, currently exists, and will continue to exist based on many factors beyond anyone's ability to fully "correct", the focus can change to pursuing and obtaining both defined absolute and relative levels of prosperity at the individual level -- minimum and expanded levels, respectively.
I am reminded of the book that came out in the early 1990's called Control Your Destiny, Or Someone Else Will. That attitude must also be inculcated as part of incentivizing individuals to seek their own
upward mobility.