This implies one's being upper class is a reflection of having better habits than the poor, which is incorrect. They just have more money. Rich people could not survive poverty.
We have poor financial habits that occasionally hint (I won't go so far as to say that they "threaten") at upending our lifestyle. Just having "more money" doesn't protect. Our habits would, if not kept in check, squander nearly anything. We are, in many ways, our own worst enemies. I've struggled to recognize this my entire adult life.
I think when someone starts speaking as you just have, it has as much to do with social posturing as anything. You have to say that, to show everyone else how special and empathetic you are. You understand the plight of the poor, that it isn't fair and they're "just like anyone else". That if some windfall dropped into their laps, they too would be rich forever, because that's how wealth works. And when you do this, you see everyone clapping and murmuring to each other about how enlightened you are, and you get off on that.
There are better habits. The wealthy tend to have more of them (many more), and the poor never develop those at all. Mostly, I think, because if they have these habits for any length of time, it quickly becomes incorrect to refer to them as poor. These habits can't protect against all misfortunes, but they protect against some and they mitigate the rest. And when you teach people that these things aren't true, you're doing them a disservice. You're robbing them of the one thing that might change their lives. It's both bizarre and cruel.
Yep, it seems like so many people are happy to tell children that their efforts and choices don't matter because everything is luck, and moreover, if they do try, they are a fool.
Cruel and tragic, especially when it comes from people who claim to be helping.
If you look at the differences between people who escape poverty and those that don't, you will find major differences in Habits and capability.
If you look at people who drop in social class and those that dont, you will also find differences.
If starting wealth was all that mattered, and human behavior had zero impact, you would see no mobility. I guess one could chalk mobility up to random luck, but this flies in a the face off massive amounts of data correlating performance with outcome.
Seems just slightly obvious, though I'm sure the studies are more nuanced than this
The problem is that this makes it harder to bring people out of poverty, because you're trying to pull them into a situation they're less adapted for. I actually am in favor of simply giving the poor (/everyone) money (e.g. basic income), but even I acknowledge that poverty-formed habits are going to be a barrier in that strategy's effectiveness.
We're not trying to pull rich people into poverty, so the fact that they wouldn't fare well there is moot.
Avoiding death is a pretty strong force for adaptation to new circumstances.
Honestly it's a completely moot point anyway, as I said: nobody is trying to pull rich people into poverty, so it doesn't matter how they'd fare.
I think it goes without saying that it would be a rough transition if you swapped two people. I expect the long term outcome would be better for a rich person swapped into poverty, than if the poor person who stayed.
I think this because they statistically and experientially I think they have more of the skills necessary to escape poverty: education, trades, social coding, ect.
You see this often with immigrants to the US, and is especially pronounced in the works of Raj Chetty and Ran Abramitzky.
When you take someone successful in one country and have them start over poor in another. The immigrants do better over the course of their lives, and the children of poor immigrants do FAR better than the children of native born poor.
https://www.amazon.com/Streets-Gold-Americas-Immigrant-Succe...
Conscientiousness is partially heritable.
The bankruptcy rate for former NFL/NBA/Music superstars and lottery winners is significantly higher than that of trust fund babies.
Make of that what you want.