Why Decry the Wealth Gap? (Response to Doug + Nathan)

Rakesh Bhandari bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Tue Jan 25 12:14:26 PST 2000


This is an optimistic view. And Nathan's rejoinder an excellent one. If more educated, it is quite possible that immigrants or other low wage workers will then only be overeducated for the low wage and very low wage jobs the American economic machine so brilliantly churns out due to structural changes in the job machine itself. The fact of immigration has nothing to do with it. ____________

Oh, I should have added that once this inequality persists, then many economists (though not Max, let me be clear) will argue that education did not change the fact that these workers are of a low (perhaps inherent) ability and thus continue to be paid less. We cannot use education as a proxy for ability--they will cry. And then progressive economists will scurry to demonstrate the problems with such apologetics, sensing correctly that the door has been opened to racial theory to explain that low imputed inherent 'cognitive' ability, measured by IQ tests rather than schooling years. So what immigrants must learn as they assimilate into this country is that it is a rather monstrously ugly one.

Yours, Rakesh



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