The Journal‘s latest “Capital” column, How Parents, Genes and Success Intersect, looks at “unfair” advantages some children have over others:
Other genetic inheritances may be more economically valuable — and may cause Americans more discomfort. ‘Traits like ‘ability’ are widely seen as legitimate sources of economic inequality,’ Mr. Jencks and colleague Laura Tach write in an essay for a forthcoming book on mobility. ‘Traits like beauty and skin color are not seen this way.’Nor is nearsightedness, an often-inherited trait that, unaddressed, can reduce a person’s wages. ‘Because eye glasses are cheap and raise people’s potential earnings a lot, almost all rich societies try to ensure that myopic children get glasses even if parents are too poor to pay for them,’ the professors say. ‘Most citizens of rich democracies would probably feel that anything less was a denial of equal opportunity.’
The point: In thinking about how much a society should permit parents to bequeath economic status to their children, even the genetic component, perhaps the simplest to understand, is more complicated than it seems initially.
Many of these “unfair” advantages that rich children have over poor children disappear in an efficient market; they seem unfair because a relatively small amount of money (for glasses, for doctors’ visits, for basic education) could avert terrible consequences. Of course, those same conditions describe wonderful loan opportunities — if you can expect to see your money back.