This is how society dies

[grumbler]

One needs to be have an extreme egocentric view of the world to ascribe their success entirely to themselves - unless they live alone, on an island, without any contact with anyone, from birth.

That's probably why that strawman argument is so unpersuasive; no sane person thinks that they can ascribe their success entirely to themselves, nor do that for others.

[Oexmelin]

it is human nature to ascribe more virtue to the individual who succeeds in a given situation than one who fails in the same position.

Arguments of human nature have a habit of changing substantially according to time and place. Which tends to undermine their... nature.

[crazy canuck]

One needs to be have an extreme egocentric view of the world to ascribe their success entirely to themselves - unless they live alone, on an island, without any contact with anyone, from birth.

That's probably why that strawman argument is so unpersuasive; no sane person thinks that they can ascribe their success entirely to themselves, nor do that for others.

And yet Yi did

[Zoupa]

One needs to be have an extreme egocentric view of the world to ascribe their success entirely to themselves - unless they live alone, on an island, without any contact with anyone, from birth.

That's probably why that strawman argument is so unpersuasive; no sane person thinks that they can ascribe their success entirely to themselves, nor do that for others.

50% of your countrymen think that way.

[The Minsky Moment]

but it is human nature to ascribe more virtue to the individual who succeeds in a given situation than one who fails in the same position. 

True but definitions of what constitutes success are not historically invariant.

[Oexmelin]

Sure, people can commit the error of being born on third base and thinking they hit a home run, but that's not intrinsic to the belief that people should fulfill  their responsibilities.  And the possibility that people will commit this error has to be weighed against the pathology of thinking that everything is someone else's fault.

Why is one a pathology, and one simply is an error? Research has shown that affluent people have succeeded in convincing themselves that their affluent position is due to their own efforts, and the failures of other, of their own damn fault. Worse, they have succeeded in convincing poorer people of the same. Even in laboratory games when this affluence was artificially created through a totally random lottery.

People sure should fulfill their responsibilities. If everyone did, all the time, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The problem is when we do not, or cannot, or when we have contradictory responsibilities, which is almost all the time. Add then, the additional problem of when people fail, whether from their own mistakes or from collective failures. What are we to do then? It seems to me that we want to ascribe responsibility to assign support to the worthy, rather than the needy. But then, we run back into the problem of ascribing said responsibility correctly.

[merithyn]

One needs to be have an extreme egocentric view of the world to ascribe their success entirely to themselves - unless they live alone, on an island, without any contact with anyone, from birth.

That's probably why that strawman argument is so unpersuasive; no sane person thinks that they can ascribe their success entirely to themselves, nor do that for others.

50% of your countrymen think that way.

That's generous. I'd argue far more than 50% think this way. Probably closer to 75%. Even Democrats can - and do - have this attitude.

[merithyn]

One thing that I think is getting lost in the weeds is that the individual is the focus in all of these discussions, when what we really want to see is society as a whole to do better.

Maybe it is better for the individual to achieve success entirely on their own, but society succeeds when more people reach their fullest potential. So, as in my example, when the goal is to get the most people going as far as they can in order to better everyone, allowing those who can't do it on their own for whatever the reason fail, society as a whole suffers. That's the point of the article, as I understand it, nitpicks ignored.

In the US and UK, the overriding belief that people should rise or fall on their own merits doesn't actually benefit all of society, which leads to more and more people unable to rise. It becomes a death spiral, which is exactly where we are right now. That prevailing attitude isn't seen in most of Europe, and so as a society, they've managed to lift more people up, creating an environment that allows others to go higher.

[Admiral Yi]

Why is one a pathology, and one simply is an error? Research has shown that affluent people have succeeded in convincing themselves that their affluent position is due to their own efforts, and the failures of other, of their own damn fault. Worse, they have succeeded in convincing poorer people of the same. Even in laboratory games when this affluence was artificially created through a totally random lottery.

I'm not terribly invested in the terminology.  Call them what you want.

People sure should fulfill their responsibilities. If everyone did, all the time, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The problem is when we do not, or cannot, or when we have contradictory responsibilities, which is almost all the time. Add then, the additional problem of when people fail, whether from their own mistakes or from collective failures. What are we to do then? It seems to me that we want to ascribe responsibility to assign support to the worthy, rather than the needy. But then, we run back into the problem of ascribing said responsibility correctly.

I see the problem of when we do not (choose to) and the problem of when we cannot as two distinct problems.  A deadbeat dad drinking and gambling away child support and a quadriplegic dad unable to work are not the same problem.

What we do when people fail is surely ground we've already covered with respect to safety nets and income transfers etc.

"Assign support" makes sense in K-12.  Empirically I'm not sure which is true, whether the high achiever nerds or the don't give a fucks get more resources.  In college, yeah, higher achievers get more subsidies.  Do you think that's a bad idea?  Outside of academics I don't know what "assign support" means, unless it's an oblique socialist humanities way of discussing pay.

[Oexmelin]

You seem to be only focused on school. I sought to broaden the conversation. Thus, "ascribe support" is a generic term for all the ways we presume to reward worth. Pay is one way, of course. But there is charity, medicare, social democracy, tax cuts, whatever you can think that is aimed at sustaining people. There is a strong undercurrent of "worth" in any discussion about redistribution of wealth.

But if you want to return to the school example, yes, I think it's a bad system. "Higher achievers" mean almost nothing in my experience, quite frankly. What have students in my - or any elite institution - achieved? They achieved being born in affluent families, and they get the education intended for the affluent, having had all the opportunities for achievement that are afforded to affluent families. So, they got unpaid internships, traveled the world, have a cosmopolitan worldview, were trusted with access to laboratories where their parents worked, had access to whatever books they wanted, the help of private tutors when they encountered difficulties at math, and the guidance of people who knew how to craft their college admission -- all of which made them legible to admission officers who more or less lived the same life. And within that system, some of them thrived, and others did not. Sure, there are a few symbolic poor students that allow administrators to craft beautiful speeches to donors, and sleep at night, all of them contented by their liberal politics or their compassionate conservatism. But the games have been played long before: kids who don't give a fuck from affluent background will still get their 19th second chance - and yes, they may still mess up - and those beautiful souls who are "high achievers" from poor background may end up with a Harvard education, forever to be touted as the living proof that everything is working as intended.

[Admiral Yi]

You seem to be only focused on school. I sought to broaden the conversation. Thus, "ascribe support" is a generic term for all the ways we presume to reward worth. Pay is one way, of course. But there is charity, medicare, social democracy, tax cuts, whatever you can think that is aimed at sustaining people. There is a strong undercurrent of "worth" in any discussion about redistribution of wealth.

But if you want to return to the school example, yes, I think it's a bad system. "Higher achievers" mean almost nothing in my experience, quite frankly. What have students in my - or any elite institution - achieved? They achieved being born in affluent families, and they get the education intended for the affluent, having had all the opportunities for achievement that are afforded to affluent families. So, they got unpaid internships, traveled the world, have a cosmopolitan worldview, were trusted with access to laboratories where their parents worked, had access to whatever books they wanted, the help of private tutors when they encountered difficulties at math, and the guidance of people who knew how to craft their college admission -- all of which made them legible to admission officers who more or less lived the same life. And within that system, some of them thrived, and others did not. Sure, there are a few symbolic poor students that allow administrators to craft beautiful speeches to donors, and sleep at night, all of them contented by their liberal politics or their compassionate conservatism. But the games have been played long before: kids who don't give a fuck from affluent background will still get their 19th second chance - and yes, they may still mess up - and those beautiful souls who are "high achievers" from poor background may end up with a Harvard education, forever to be touted as the living proof that everything is working as intended.

I'm not only focused on school.  I'm trying to follow your argument.  As I've already said "we" do in fact "assign support" to students in school so I can easily discuss that in that context.  In the world of work we don't assign anything, so I reject your premise.  You and I and the rest didn't assign any support to Warren Buffet or Jeff Bezos.

Your major point seems to be that suburban upper middle class families are gaming the college admissions system.  I'm with you.  Come up with something better that actually measures the relevant function of innate ability and effort and I'll back you 100%.

[Oexmelin]

You and I and the rest didn't assign any support to Warren Buffet or Jeff Bezos.

Oh, but we do - you and me both. You think tax cuts are a feature of the State of Nature? A favorable environment for the sort of investment that these guys do? The sort of infrastructure that allow them to hire people with marketable skills designed especially for their businesses? The sort of whoring out of cities to Amazon we saw recently? These are all features of political systems which, at least in the way we promote things, is supposed to be you and I and everybody else.

[Admiral Yi]

Oh, but we do - you and me both. You think tax cuts are a feature of the State of Nature? A favorable environment for the sort of investment that these guys do? The sort of infrastructure that allow them to hire people with marketable skills designed especially for their businesses? The sort of whoring out of cities to Amazon we saw recently? These are all features of political systems which, at least in the way we promote things, is supposed to be you and I and everybody else.

OK, if you want to really, really stretch the meaning you can say that we "assign support" to capital through the protection of property rights.  But you and I certainly didn't assign any support to Warren and Jeff the individuals in recognition of their commendable sense of responsibility, or for any other reason relating to them as individuals.

[Sheilbh]

In the US and UK, the overriding belief that people should rise or fall on their own merits doesn't actually benefit all of society, which leads to more and more people unable to rise. It becomes a death spiral, which is exactly where we are right now. That prevailing attitude isn't seen in most of Europe, and so as a society, they've managed to lift more people up, creating an environment that allows others to go higher.

Again I'm not convinced that's a UK thing. We're a monarchy with hereditary peers and five of our post-war Prime Ministers are Old Etonians. We may not do enough to fix it, but I don't think we can be seen as a country that is ignorant of the advantages of birth/effect of class.

As the late Gerald Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster and one of the richest men in the country put it when asked if what advice he'd give a young entrepreneur: "Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror."

[Oexmelin]

OK, if you want to really, really stretch the meaning you can say that we "assign support" to capital through the protection of property rights.  But you and I certainly didn't assign any support to Warren and Jeff the individuals in recognition of their commendable sense of responsibility, or for any other reason relating to them as individuals.

I don't think that is such a stretch as you make it to be. Concepts of property are hopelessly embedded in notions of the collective and the common good - lest you simply want to make it rely solely on might. 

And yes, neither you or I as an individual send a check to Bezos or Buffett. And therein lies the whole issue, does it not? These are people that are incredibly wealthy -- successful by most of the important metrics of a capitalist society. How do we justify such discrepancy in wealth? The argument usually rests on merit: that these people are ultimately responsible for their own success - which in turn ought to justify that they should be the sole judges of their property's use. But if we allow that some of the responsibility for their wealth comes from an apparatus over which they, themselves had little control - what happens to the argument? Which part of their wealth do their own agency cover? Which part do the agency of countless others?

Conversely, the argument is often made that people who are down on their luck are usually reaping the rewards of their shortsightedness. Didn't have tornado insurance? Though luck, should have thought about that. Don't have medical insurance? Let him die.

And so the notion that people are responsible for their successes and mistakes is intimately tied to the notion of responsibility per se - i.e., people being good, responsible citizens, worthy, virtuous, and all that. But we slip from one version of responsibility-as-agency into responsibility-as-virtue so easily as to stretch circumstances and wealth into virtue. By focusing on the individual responsibility of people in their own circumstances, we allow ourselves to be more indifferent to our fellow citizens in need, yet we tout the words of the Bezos and Buffetts as the expression of considerable wisdom.