Amerika

One of the most deeply rooted convictions in the modern liberal imagination is that the abolition of hereditary privileges, equality before the law, and free competition allow individuals to attain a social position determined primarily by their abilities and efforts. The resulting “social mobility” acquires a significance that extends beyond its economic meaning, representing the possibility that each generation might free itself from inherited circumstances and reshape its own destiny.

From this perspective, modern societies have progressively replaced traditional hierarchies with an open order in which birth loses its importance relative to individual merit. This expectation, particularly evident in the American narrative of the self-made man, has found various expressions in both classical liberalism and its social and progressive variants. However, an extensive investigation by economic historian Gregory Clark poses considerable difficulties for this interpretation of Western historical development.

In his study To Have and Have Not: The Determinants of Social Status in England, 1600–2026, Clark examines the mechanisms through which social status has been transmitted over more than four centuries of English history. His research extends a line of inquiry previously developed in The Son Also Rises (2014) and in his article “The Inheritance of Social Status: England, 1600 to 2022,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2023.

The new investigation draws upon a genealogical database of more than 430,000 individuals belonging to 499 lineages, supplemented by approximately 1.7 million marriage records. Using these sources, Clark reconstructs family relationships spanning numerous generations and examines indicators such as literacy, higher education, occupation, wealth, house values, and longevity. His objective is to determine the extent to which social position depends on historically changeable circumstances and the extent to which it persists through mechanisms of familial transmission.

Clark’s findings challenge the degree of social mobility commonly attributed to modern societies. According to his estimates, the underlying intergenerational correlation of social status approaches 0.8, a value considerably higher than that reported by conventional measurements. These generally employ specific indicators, such as income or years of schooling, which may imperfectly reflect a broader social position. By comparing different degrees of kinship, including fourth cousins, Clark finds that social similarities decline slowly as genealogical distance increases. This correlation does not mean that 80 percent of an individual’s destiny is predetermined, nor that upward or downward mobility is impossible, although it describes a considerable statistical persistence that allows differences between lineages to be identified even after numerous generations. The significance of this finding lies precisely in that continuity, which remains partially concealed when only the immediate outcomes of parents and children are compared.

The historical dimension gives the argument its greatest scope. Between 1600 and 2026, England underwent extraordinary institutional, technological, and cultural transformations. Agrarian and estate-based society gave way to industrialization, urbanization, expanding markets, universal suffrage, and the incorporation of women into higher education and paid employment. Schooling ceased to depend primarily on family resources and became a service largely financed by the state. These transformations were accompanied by labor legislation, public healthcare, and numerous redistributive mechanisms. Nevertheless, Clark maintains that the underlying persistence of social status has remained remarkably stable. Hierarchies ceased to reproduce themselves through many of their former institutions, yet familial differences continued to manifest themselves with similar intensity. If this estimate is correct, four centuries of modernization would have radically transformed living conditions without producing the intergenerational mobility that might be expected from an increasingly open society.

Education provides one of the most significant examples of this discrepancy. In 1851, children from families belonging to the lowest social quintile received approximately 5.6 years of schooling, compared with 9.4 years among those in the highest quintile. The expansion of compulsory education considerably reduced this difference. By 1939, these figures had risen to 9.7 and 10.8 years, respectively. Clark observes, however, that the narrowing of this gap was not accompanied by a corresponding transformation in social mobility rates. His analyses of the educational reforms of 1922, 1947, and 1972 likewise find no lasting improvements clearly attributable to the additional years of compulsory schooling imposed upon the affected students. This conclusion challenges the expectation that accumulating formal education can indefinitely alter individuals’ relative social positions. Naturally, this does not imply that education lacks cultural, professional, or personal benefits. The question under examination is more specific: its capacity to alter the status correlations that persist across generations.

International comparison broadens the issue. Denmark and Sweden are frequently presented as examples of societies that have reduced the obstacles associated with family background through extensive welfare systems and universal educational services. Clark applies procedures designed to correct measurement errors in both countries and obtains underlying intergenerational educational correlations of approximately 0.69 and 0.67, respectively, compared with the 0.77 estimated for contemporary England. Although differences exist, these magnitudes are considerably closer than certain conventional measurements suggest. The distinction between economic equality and social mobility becomes particularly important here. A society may reduce material disparities among its members, guarantee public services, and improve the living conditions of its less advantaged sectors while maintaining a high degree of familial persistence in educational and occupational positions. A general improvement in living conditions does not necessarily entail a proportional redistribution of relative social positions.

Clark proposes a particularly controversial explanation for this continuity: the importance of direct genetic transmission, combined with strong marital selection based on similar social characteristics, known as assortative mating. His records show that the underlying status correlations between spouses have remained close to 0.8 since the mid-eighteenth century. According to his model, this tendency would contribute to the reproduction of familial differences across generations, even when institutions eliminate numerous formal obstacles to social advancement. Clark reinforces his interpretation by examining family size, birth order, differences between maternal and paternal influence, and the effects of the early death of parents. He finds that many of these circumstances have smaller effects on adult social status than would be expected from explanations that place substantial emphasis on the domestic environment.

This controversy introduces an indispensable distinction. Cultural, institutional, and economic mechanisms can also contribute to the familial reproduction of social status. Nevertheless, the strength of the challenge posed to liberal expectations of mobility does not depend upon accepting Clark’s hereditary interpretation in its entirety.

Even if a considerable proportion of the observed correlations resulted from cultural transmission, social networks, or accumulated wealth, it would still be necessary to explain why certain familial advantages and disadvantages persist over such extended periods. Legal equality and the abolition of explicit privileges can coexist with mechanisms of social reproduction that are difficult to alter through ordinary institutional reforms.

The philosophical problem ultimately extends to the modern image of the individual as an agent relatively detached from his origins. Social mobility has become one of the principal arguments through which liberal societies justify their hierarchies, presenting them as the outcome of open competition among formally equal individuals. Clark introduces a far longer temporal dimension into this picture. Every person enters a world structured by family relationships, inherited characteristics, resources, and historical trajectories that condition his future possibilities to degrees that remain disputed. Institutional transformations may expand freedoms and substantially improve material conditions without necessarily dissolving these continuities. The study therefore invites us to reconsider the confidence that the myth of political and economic progress automatically leads to a society in which birth loses its importance.

Tags: democracy, equality, genetics, social mobility