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Coming Apart

the State of White America, 1960-2010
May 10, 2018gaetanlion rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Murray observes that our society is polarized through cognitive sorting. At the top individuals with more human capital develop their full potential within a knowledge based marketplace. The median income at the 95th percentile has risen rapidly since 1960. While, blue collar union manufacturing jobs are gone. At the 25th percentile income has remained flat since 1960. Cognitive sorting has generated an upper class as the market value of brains has accelerated. This has translated into wealth channels that enhance the potential of brainy individuals. College sorting has enhanced the identification of top talent. Colleges are tiered with the top ones becoming more selective and capturing a large share of the top youth cognitive talent. The perpetrating mechanism is cognitive homogamy where partners mate with similar education and IQ. In 1960, only 3% of couples had both college degrees. By 2010 that proportion had risen to 25%. The cognitive top tier transmit their high IQ from one generation to the next. This intensified cognitive sorting has had two impacts. First, society has benefited through a tremendous boost in productivity, and innovation (think Steve Jobs). The second impact has been a rise in income inequality. Murray considers those two implications inevitable. You can't have one without the other. If a society facilitates individuals reaching their full potential, you will get greater outcome divergence. Murray categorizes two segments within the white population. The first one is the upper-middle class that he calls Belmont (top 20% with college degree and white collar occupation). The second one is the working class he calls Fishtown (bottom 30% with only high school degree). For Belmont (top 20%) social trends have held up well since 1960s. Their marriage metrics have remained stable (marriage rate, % with very happy marriage). Their industriousness measures have remained stable (unemployment rate, labor participation rate). Honesty measures have remained constant (imprisonment rate, arrest rate, crime rate all at very low levels). Belmont's educational level is on an upswing. For Fishtown (bottom 30%) all social trends are deteriorating. Marriage rate and labor participation rate for males have plummeted. Divorce rate, single parenthood rate, unemployment rate, imprisonment rate, and crime rate have all skyrocketed. Within this group, he observes excessive reliance on government welfare associated with an unwillingness to work characterized by working the minimum to qualify for and readily take unemployment benefits (the Sunshine Clubs). Disability fraud is rampant. This lower class (Fishtown) is close to disintegrating. He states: "The raw material that makes community even possible has diminished so much in Fishtown that the situation may be beyond retrieval… That raw material is social trust... The existence of social trust is a core explanation of why some cultures create wealth and others do not." In one of the last chapters, Murray update his analysis to include all ethnic groups not just the whites (capturing the top 20% for Belmont and bottom 30% for Fishtown). Most trends are undistinguishable whether you look at whites or all ethnic groups (the exceptions are higher crime rate and imprisonment rate when including all ethnic groups as Blacks and Latinos incur much higher rate of both). Murray concludes on page 276: "... White America is not headed in one direction and nonwhite America in another.