Insurrection on High Street

I just completed reading "Twilight of the Elites" by Chris Hayes,an insurrectionist, who stands up to  institutional elites like a doe protecting a fawn from a coyote.He starts the book by reviewing America's lack of trust in our institutions.Twelve percent trust Congress,twenty-five percent for the banks and corporations,thirty-one percent for news media were some examples that were provided to illustrate the crisis in authority.The country's median income fell 7% from 1990 to 2010 while CEO's  incomes as a ratio are 185 times larger than the average worker(was 25 times larger in the 70's).He states that institutionalists,our meritocratic elites, live in fear of a society without central responsibilities of authority,one that could collapse into mob rule (the majority of Americans without advanced degrees from elite education institutes)at any time.Meritocracy,according to Hayes, has accelerated extreme economic inequality and lead to corruption and malfeasance in MLB, Enron, Iraq, Great Depression of 2008 and in many other institutions.Meritocracy has replaced the WASP establishment and has been trying to equalize opportunity, in theory, but has no compassion or expectation for the equality of economic outcomes that is the cornerstone of an enlightened society(71% of  American families combined income is less than $50,000).

Hayes went to Hunter H.S in Manhattan which is an elite public school that has an entrance exam in the seventh grade for anyone in NYC to gain admission.He claims that this merit admission policy is flawed because there is no such thing as a level playing field(equal opportunity).Since 1995, the school's Black and Latino population has declined considerably over the past fourteen years(12% to  3%  for Black students and 6% to 3% for Latino students). Currently,the Black population in NYC is 25% and the Latino population is 27.5%. Moreover, income levels of parents play a tremendous part in the success of students applying to Hunter.It also is a great predictor of SAT scores.High income households can pay for elite academies that prepare for the Hunter test($2,550 for fourteen weekends or $90/hr for one on one tutoring).This data is contrasted by the fact that 75% of the NYC students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Today,America's primary and secondary educational systems have been used to expiate the sins of our society. Institutionalists,as a whole, have ignored economic outcomes and believe that if only we could improve our educational systems,our society would once again return to economic greatness.Hayes argues that even the children of the  upper middle class,with degrees from the world's finest colleges, are having trouble finding jobs in their field of study.He states that elite universities and Wall St. have fused into a sort of educational industrial complex where 40% of the students from Harvard and Princeton seek and find their leadership roles in the growing world of finance.

More to come from this book.