Thursday, February 25, 2016

Elites not better - just luckier

An extract from an article by Owen James in today's Guardian.


"Inequality runs through our society like a stick of rock. The elites are not better than everybody else – they’re just luckier, given helping hands while others are met with slammed doors. It is a waste of talent. And we all suffer for it.

"Over the last generation – and longer – there has been a shift in attitudes towards inequality. We’ve been encouraged to believe that those at the top deserve to be there, through their graft, determination and intelligence; and that, equally, those at the bottom are there because they are lazy and feckless.

"It is a convenient rationalisation of profound inequality perpetuated by a persistently negative media portrayal of those in poverty and a belief that what we once considered social problems are actually individual failings. But the truth is, the upper tiers of British society discriminate on the basis of wealth, not talent."

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