There's a reason upward mobility feels impossible - I found the infrastructure that ensures it - Silicon Canals

"I've come to a conclusion that makes me deeply uncomfortable: the infrastructure of modern economies is not broken. It is performing exactly as designed. The feeling that upward mobility is impossible isn't a feeling. It's a measurement."

"These systems are not neutral. They are load-bearing walls in a structure built to maintain the distribution of wealth and status across generations. Once you see them, you can't unsee them. And once you can't unsee them, the cheerful meritocratic story most of us were raised on starts to read like propaganda."

"A 2024 report from the Brookings Institution found that absolute income mobility in the United States has fallen from roughly 90% for children born in 1940 to around 50% for those born in the 1980s. Half. Half the people born in the 1980s will not out-earn their parents."

Economic mobility has declined significantly, with only 50% of people born in the 1980s earning more than their parents, compared to 90% born in 1940. This decline reflects not individual failure but structural design. The systems governing modern economies—including credentialing, capital access, zoning, hiring networks, and tax architecture—function as load-bearing walls maintaining existing wealth distribution. Higher education operates as both gateway and tollbooth, with entry costs exploding while professional returns compress. These interconnected systems are not neutral or broken; they perform exactly as designed to preserve class status across generations. The meritocratic narrative of hard work and education leading to success functions as propaganda masking these structural realities.

Read at Silicon Canals