Correct. It’s a way to “cycle the elites”. A healthy society will always include an elite minority. But to remain healthy there needs to be a way to circulate the elites so that those that should rise have methods to and those that should fall get their spot taken. Trying to engineer this around arbitrary things like sex or race can’t work because those people don’t have what it takes in the end.
Sure, I’m just using terms that Gaetano Mosca uses when describing elite theory.
As for litmus test, again sure. But accounting for cultural and biological differences matters. There’s a reason Asians are over represented in certain things due to a culture that values education. Or men tending to distribute differently than women. And many other things. It would be naive to believe any difference in outcomes is purely discriminatory. Although of course that can be a factor.
> But accounting for cultural and biological differences matters
This could mean different things to different people
Lets imagine we have a perfectly objective, merit based hiring/admissions process. We could still have proffeshions with 1% women, or 1% blacks, etc.
This could be caused by culture, say no women want to be bricklayers or software developers. Or men spent insane amount of effort, like more than is logical.
There is still a valid debate, what do we do about this. Maybe you should not just 'let it play out'.
Like we should hypothetically reward people that work hard.
But recently we had some poor intern at Goldman literally die from overwork. He worked himself to death, died for like £30K salary, what a waste.
Should we really reward that? Should the company face some consequences if this keeps happening?
Obviouslt we kniw 'Back in the day' culture for women was such, that they would not be prepared, in skills and in attitude, to compete with men in education or employment.
If we never went for cultural change, it would still be that way.
It think it's really important that at early stages in life more people are given a chance to change course. That's what educational institutions are for.
