Sometime back, during an evening out with friends of the ex-colleague kind, one of them remarked how, for the business analyst roles he was hiring for, he had asked his HR to only consider the IIT + IIM species. It’s an understandable heuristic, and one I have seen too often now to be vexed.<\/p>\n
In public, that is. It didn’t stop me from thinking of a subject that hasn’t appeared on the blog since 2016 – meritocracy<\/a>. At a personal level, I have battled the systemic bias with whatever cognitive privilege I had, and made modest gains. There have been scars too –\u00a0“the <\/em><\/span>muscle memory<\/span><\/em> of having to fight for every little thing<\/em>“, and it’s only recently that I have been able to deal with it objectively, and heal. But increasingly, I have felt that education is the new caste.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That explains why parents are willing (themselves and their kids) to do anything\u00a0 to be equipped for the hyper-competitive admissions process that starts from pre-school! It also explains why education costs continue to surge. In the world I grew up in, the average middle class parent was able to propel the child into a higher orbit of socio-economic and even cultural privilege. But that’s not as easy anymore, and it has gotten more layered.<\/p>\n The real class war is between the 0.1 percent and (at most) the 10\u00a0percent\u2014or,<\/span>\u00a0more precisely, between elites primarily dependent on capital gains and those primarily dependent on profes\u00adsional labor<\/em>.\u00b9 This might not be as stark as it is in the US, but as capital flexes its muscles to consistently increase gains, automation and layoffs will rise and there will be at least a generation or two that suffers while business and society try to find new economic opportunities. This generation is more likely to have debts and increasingly get pushed towards labour, and further inequality. The body-crushing gig economy and the mind-crushing bullsh*t jobs\u00b2 are both symptoms. It’s ironic that this labour and mind capital could potentially solve the world’s biggest problems, but then, that isn’t economically rewarding!<\/p>\n The layers, thus, are many. The kids who couldn’t go to any school, the kids who couldn’t go to a school that could give them escape velocity, the adults who reached orbit but who couldn’t sustain the merciless grind, or are forced to retreat a bit so their kids could go higher. It’s easy to interpret this as a whine of those not intelligent\/competitive enough and indulge in the self flattery of meritocracy. But it’s worthwhile to pause and reflect on how much is talent, and how much is luck.\u00b3 It is also worth noting that this economics has the potential to drive politics and society at large into radicalism if not outright revolution.\u00a0The counter argument to inequality was mobility. But as you can see, upward mobility is on its way to becoming mythology.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, as with many other things in my life, my much better half manages to bring balance to the Force.\u00a0For, as I ponder “intellectually” on class wars, she tells me that she is stepping out for her regular Saturday morning assignment – reading to kids in the government school nearby to improve their English skills. It makes me hope that the kids will reach at least one level higher than their parents, and will have enough humanity left in them to extend the privilege of access to those less fortunate.<\/p>\n 1 The Real Class War<\/a><\/p>\n 2.\u00a0On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant<\/a><\/p>\n