نظرية اللعبة #3: أبي الغني وأبي الفقير
الترجمة العربية
نتناول اليوم سؤال النجاح: من ينجح ولماذا؟ وقد كشفت الأبحاث أن للناجحين أسبابًا بعينها تفسر نجاحهم.
ثمة عالم نفس من جامعة كولومبيا اسمه والتر ميشيل، ابتكر تجربة شهيرة عُرفت بـ"اختبار المارشميلو." الفكرة بالغة البساطة: يُدعى طفل في الرابعة أو الخامسة من عمره إلى غرفة، ويجري معه حديث ودي قصير، ثم يقوم الباحث ويقول: "أعتذر، لدي اجتماع في الردهة المقابلة، لكنني سأعود. وأقترح عليك صفقة: هذه حبة مارشميلو، تستطيع أن تأكلها الآن، لكن إن كانت لا تزال في مكانها حين أعود، فسأعطيك حبتين." ثم يتراجع ميشيل ليراقب من وراء مرآة أحادية الاتجاه كيف يتصارع الأطفال مع الإغراء. بعضهم يصمد وينتظر، وبعضهم لا يستطيع.
قضى ميشيل خمسين عامًا يتابع هؤلاء الأطفال. ما وجده أن الذين صبروا وانتظروا الحبة الثانية كانوا أكثر تفوقًا في المدرسة، وأعلى في درجات الاختبارات، وأرسخ في مساراتهم المهنية وأسرع في الترقي، وأقدر على بناء علاقات مستقرة، وأبعد عن السجن والمخدرات والكحول، وأكثر رشاقة وصحة وأطول عمرًا. أما الذين التهموا الحبة فورًا فحصدوا العكس. استنتج ميشيل أن النجاح يقوم على تأجيل المكافأة، أي على التخطيط البعيد؛ وهذا ما نسميه ضبط الذات أو التنظيم الانفعالي.
وثمة عالمة نفس في ستانفورد اسمها كارول دويك، كتبت كتاب "العقلية"، وترى أن من ينجحون في الحياة يملكون عقلية النمو، بينما من يفشلون يحملون عقلية الثبات. الفرق يتجلى في المرونة: صاحب عقلية النمو حين يقع يقول في نفسه "هذه فرصة للتعلم، لأرَ أين أخطأت وأفعل أحسن في المرة القادمة." أما صاحب العقلية الثابتة فيعتقد أن الفشل دليل على عجز لا يمكن تجاوزه، فيستسلم. كلاهما يفشل، لكن الأول يشد الحزام والثاني يلقي الراية.
وجاء عالم النفس السويدي ك. أندرس إريكسون بفكرة الممارسة المتعمدة. تساءل: لماذا يبلغ بعضهم قمة الإتقان في الموسيقى أو الرياضة؟ ووجد أن المتفوقين لا يكتفون بالعمل الشاق، بل يعملون باستراتيجية: ما أهدافي؟ كيف أبلغها؟ وكيف أُحسّن خطتي باستمرار؟ هم يراجعون ممارستهم ويبحثون عن مواطن الضعف ليصلحوها. هذا ما يُسمى بالتأمل الذاتي أو التقييم الذاتي — المراجعة المستمرة لاستراتيجيات التعلم. وخلاصة ما توصل إليه إريكسون أن من يفعل ذلك سينجح في أي شيء يريده.
ومما يؤكد هذه الفكرة ما اكتشفه علماء النفس الأمريكيان دانينج وكروغر في ظاهرة عُرفت باسمهما. أجروا اختبارًا على خمسمئة طالب جامعي في مادة علم النفس، حيث طلبوا من كل طالب تقييم موضعه في الترتيب بعد اختبار الذكاء. اتضح أن أحدًا لم يُصب التقدير؛ فالمتفوقون ظنوا أنهم في المرتبة العشرين لأن الاختبار بدا لهم سهلًا فافترضوا أنه كذلك للجميع. لكن الأشد إثارة أن أضعف خمسة بالمئة ظنوا أنهم في المتوسط! والسبب أن العاجز عن الأداء يعجز أيضًا عن إدراك عجزه. وهكذا فإن أصعب ما يواجه الطالب هو تقييم نفسه تقييمًا صادقًا. هذه الظاهرة تفسر كثيرًا مما نراه في العالم: أصحاب السلطة في الغالب واثقون من أنفسهم وهم يرتكبون أفدح الأخطاء.
إذن لدينا ثلاث نظريات: ضبط الذات، والمرونة، والتقييم الذاتي. وكمدارس ومربّين، نستطيع نظريًا بناء مناهج تدعم الطلاب على هذه المحاور. المشكلة أن هذا لا ينجح في الواقع؛ فتدريس الطالب الضعيف مهارات ضبط الذات والمرونة والتأمل الذاتي لا يحسّن نتائجه فعليًا. والسبب مبدأ بالغ الأهمية: الارتباط لا يعني السببية. مجرد وجود علاقة بين ظاهرتين لا يعني أن إحداهما تسبب الأخرى.
الناجحون يستيقظون مبكرًا — في الرابعة صباحًا — لكن الاستيقاظ في الرابعة لا يصنع منك ناجحًا. الجد والمرونة وعقلية النمو هي ثمار النجاح لا أسبابه؛ فحين تنجح تصبح أكثر دافعية وانضباطًا وتواضعًا. بمعنى آخر: الثروة تُنتج صفات النجاح، لكن هذه الصفات وحدها لا تُنتج الثروة. من المهم جدًا أن نفهم الفرق.
فمن الذي ينجح إذن؟ الوقائع الاقتصادية الكلية تقول بصراحة: لا يكاد يهم مستواك الدراسي. إن كان أبوك غنيًا فستنجح، وإن كان فقيرًا فالأمر عسير. والفارق ليس في الجينات ولا في الذكاء، بل في أسلوب التربية.
ثلاثة فوارق جوهرية بين تربية الأغنياء وتربية الفقراء: أولها اللغة، فآباء الأغنياء يكثرون من الكلام مع أبنائهم ويستخدمون مفردات أرحب وجملًا أطول، بينما يكتفي آباء الفقراء في الغالب بـ"نعم" و"لا" و"ابعد عني." والثاني الأسلوب؛ فالأب الغني يشرح لابنه الذي لمس الموقد ويُبيّن له: "أخطأت، لا بأس، دعني أُفهمك لماذا النار تُحرق..." فيشعر الطفل بأن العالم آمن وأنه محترم فيه. أما الأب الفقير فيصرخ: "لا تعد لهذا أبدًا وإلا...!" فيترسخ في الطفل أن العالم مخيف والكبار مصدر خطر. وينعكس هذا في المدرسة: الطفل الغني يرى في المعلم صديقًا فيبتسم ويحتضنه فيرد المعلم بالمثل، بينما الطفل الفقير يتجنب النظر في عيني المعلم فيُصنَّف طفلًا إشكاليًا.
والفارق الثالث هو الاستقرار: الأغنياء قادرون على الوفاء بوعودهم، والفقراء غير قادرين على ذلك لأن المال شحيح ومتقلب. وهذا التقلب يتسرب إلى كل شيء.
الآن نعود إلى اختبار المارشميلو. الحقيقة أنه ليس اختبار ضبط نفس، بل اختبار ثقة بالآخرين. إن كنت تثق بأن هذا الشخص سيعود ويفي بوعده، فلن تأكل الحبة. وإن كنت تعتقد أنه يخدعك، فستأكلها. الطفل الفقير ليس طفلًا أقل ذكاءً أو ضبطًا — هو طفل عقلاني يستجيب لواقع يعيشه. في واقعه، الوعد نادرًا ما يُوفى به، فالأجدر به أن يأخذ ما بيده الآن. وكذلك المرونة: من يحيط به من يعينه إن سقط يستطيع الصمود، ومن يرى أن لا أحد سيمد له يدًا حين يقع، يتعلم أن يتوقف ولا يُجرّب.
والتأمل الذاتي عسير على من يعيش تحت ضغط دائم، لأن التطلع إلى الداخل لا يرى سوى الألم والتوتر.
قد يقودك هذا إلى الاستنتاج بأن الحل في بناء مدارس تُعوّض الفقر بأساليب التربية الجيدة: معلمون ودودون، ومفردات غنية، واستقرار. جُرّب هذا وأفلح نسبيًا، لكنه لم يحسم المسألة؛ لأن الأطفال يصلون إلى المدرسة وقد تشكّلت قناعاتهم الجوهرية. ثم فكّر: لماذا لا نُغيّر أسلوب الآباء؟ والجواب أن هذا أعسر، لأن الآباء يتصرفون بما يحقق اندماجهم في مجتمعاتهم لا بما يُحسّن مستقبل أبنائهم وحسب.
المجتمع هرمي، والهرم يقوم على الفجوة بين الأغنياء والفقراء. الفقير مُبرمَج على الطاعة لأنها شرط البقاء. الغني مُبرمَج على التفاوض لأنه أداة الارتقاء. وكل فئة تُعلّم أطفالها قواعد اللعبة التي تناسب وضعها. الأب الفقير يأمر لأنه يُعدّ ابنه لعالم فيه تلقّي الأوامر ضرورة. والأب الغني يُحاور لأنه يُعدّ ابنه لعالم فيه التفاوض مفتاح.
لكن ما الذي يُزعزع هذا التوازن الظاهر ويُشعل الثورات؟ المشكلة تكمن في الأغنياء أنفسهم. فهم مبرمجون على السعي إلى أعلى ما يمكن بلوغه، لأن الأقل من ذلك يبدو إخفاقًا في حق أنفسهم. والسلطة لعبة صفرية — القمة تتسع لعدد محدود. حين تتكاثر الطموحات ويضيق المجال يحدث ما يُسميه المحللون "الإنتاج الزائد من النخبة"؛ أي كثرة المتطلعين إلى السلطة وقلة المناصب المتاحة. عندها تتشكل تحالفات بين فصائل من النخبة وفصائل من الشعب لقلب موازين السلطة.
كل الثورات في التاريخ لم تكن بين الأغنياء والفقراء، بل بين "من يملك كثيرًا" و"من يملك بعضًا." من قاد الثورة الصينية لم يكن من الفقراء المعدمين، بل كان من النخبة التي لم تُمنح حصتها من السلطة. وهكذا كان في كل ثورة؛ يقودها عادةً الطبقة الوسطى أو التجار، الذين يملكون المال لكنهم يُحرمون من التحول إلى نفوذ.
والآلية التي يُحشد بها الفقراء دائمًا واحدة عبر التاريخ. تتراكم ثلاثة أعباء فوق الفقراء: الديون التي لا تُسدَّد بسبب الفوائد، وضياع الأرض التي هي مصدر رزقهم، والرق الذي ينتقل من الآباء إلى الأبناء. وحين يبلغ الكيل ذروته، تأتي النخبة الطامحة وتقول للناس: اتبعونا وسنمحو ديونكم ونعيد أراضيكم ونحرر أبناءكم. هذا المشهد تكرّر في كل ثورة في التاريخ، بصرف النظر عن الاسم الذي يُطلق عليها؛ الثورة الشيوعية أو الثورة الإسلامية أو غيرها. يوليوس قيصر شعبيته جاءت لنفس السبب: وعد الرومان بإلغاء ديونهم وتحريرهم من الرق ومنحهم الأرض. ولأنه قال ذلك اغتالوه.
ونظرية اللعبة هنا تُوضّح أن الأفراد لا يصنعون التاريخ بمفردهم، بل التيارات الاجتماعية الكبرى هي التي تصنعه. لا يمكنك تغيير مصير الفقراء بإصلاح مدرسة أو تعليم مهارة، ما لم تُغير البنية الكلية التي يعيشون فيها.
أما التنقل الاجتماعي فهو أفضل أشكال الحوكمة دون استثناء. حين تُتاح الفرصة لأصحاب الموهبة والطموح كي يرتقوا، يعملون ويُبدعون ويُنتجون ويشعرون بالرضا. لا يهم نوع النظام — ديمقراطيًا كان أم اشتراكيًا — المهم أن تفتح الأبواب. ذاك ما جعل أمريكا الخمسينيات والصين الخمسينيات كلتيهما مجتمعين نشطين منتجين رغم اختلاف نظاميهما.
لكن البشر يُنجبون أطفالًا، ويريدون لهم الخلافة من بعدهم. فحين يتمكنون من السلطة، يبدأون في تحصين مواقعهم وغلق الأبواب أمام من يشبههم، وإعادة هندسة النظام كي يرث أبناؤهم لا المستحقون. وهكذا يتحجر الهرم ويتوقف التنقل الاجتماعي حتى يُصبح الثوران الضرورة لا الخيار. الثورة في جوهرها ليست سوى إعادة ضبط اللعبة؛ حين يحتكر عشرة لاعبين الفوز ويُغلقون كل السبل على الباقين، لا يجد التسعون خيارًا سوى كسر اللعبة وإعادة البدء. وحين تُعاد اللعبة من الصفر يُفتح التنقل الاجتماعي من جديد، ثم يسير التاريخ في دورته ذاتها.
ولهذا تختلف مدارس الأغنياء اختلافًا جوهريًا عن مدارس الفقراء. المدارس تُعيد إنتاج التراتبية لا تكسرها. هي مُصمَّمة لكي ينجح فريق ويُخفق الآخرون. ليس لأن أحدًا اجتمع وتآمر، بل لأن هذا هو ما يُنتجه التقاطع الطبيعي لمصالح اللاعبين في اللعبة.
Game Theory #3: Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Original Transcript
Today we look at the question of success. The question is: who succeeds and why? We've done a lot of research and we've discovered that people who succeed do so for certain reasons.
There is a Columbia psychologist named Walter Mischel and he devised a very famous experiment called the marshmallow test. In the marshmallow test, it's very easy. Imagine a room — I invite a four-year-old or five-year-old to come in and have a conversation. I ask him, "How's your mother? What do you like to do?" — a very good conversation. Then suddenly I get up and say, "I'm really sorry, but I need to go across the hallway for another meeting, but I'll be back. Here, I'll make you a deal. Here's a marshmallow. I'm going to put a marshmallow in front of you, and you can have it right now, but if I come back and the marshmallow is still there, I will give you two marshmallows." Then Walter Mischel goes away and watches through a one-way mirror as the children struggle to contain themselves because obviously they want two marshmallows. Some students can in fact resist the temptation and wait for the second marshmallow. But then there are others who cannot.
Walter Mischel would spend fifty years tracking them. What he discovers is this: the students who resist the temptation and get the second marshmallow are much more likely to do better in school. They have higher test scores. They have better careers, more stable careers, and they get promoted. They're much more able to find stable relationships. They avoid jail. They avoid drugs. They avoid alcohol. They're more lean, more fit, they live longer, better teeth. And those who cannot resist and eat the first marshmallow right away have the opposite outcome. So for Walter Mischel, success means delayed gratification — people who succeed are capable of long-term planning. To succeed today, I will make the sacrifices necessary. If my friends are playing outside and I need to do my homework, I'm going to stay home and do my homework. Long-term planning, what he calls delayed gratification. Or a much simpler way of saying this is self-control, or emotional regulation — you're able to keep your emotions in check.
Another theory of success comes from a psychologist named Carol Dweck at Stanford, who wrote a book called Mindset. What she tells us is that those who succeeded in life have a growth mindset, and those who fail have a fixed mindset. The idea is resilience. Those with a growth mindset, if they fall or fail, say to themselves: "This is an opportunity for me to learn. I'm going to think about what I did wrong, and next time I'll do better." Those with a fixed mindset cannot accept the idea of failure. They think it means they're not capable of improving, and therefore they give up. If they fail, they just give up. If those with a growth mindset fail, they try harder.
The third idea of success comes from K. Anders Ericsson, a Swedish psychologist, who wants to know why certain people are able to succeed as musicians or athletes. He creates the idea of deliberate practice. What he found is that people who want to become athletes or musicians work really hard and practice every day. But the people who succeed practice strategically. Those who just work hard work for a long time. But those who work strategically have a plan: what are my goals, how can I achieve these goals, and how do I improve my plan? They're examining their own practices and trying to figure out where the weaknesses are, where they can improve. If the plan helps them improve, they stick to it. If the plan doesn't really work, they change it. This is the idea of self-reflection, or self-assessment — constantly thinking about how you are as a student and figuring out how to improve your own learning strategies. What Ericsson discovered is that if you do this, you'll succeed at anything.
And the reason why we know it's true comes from two American psychologists named Dunning and Krueger — the Dunning-Krueger effect. They ran an experiment with five hundred students in a first-year university psychology class. They made every student take an IQ test. After the test, they asked each student: do you think you placed in the top five percent or the bottom five percent? It turns out that no one got the ranking correct. Those who were in the top five percent thought they were maybe in the top twenty percent, because for them it was easy and they assumed it was easy for everyone else. But what was dramatic is that those who scored the lowest thought they were average. The worst five percent in the class thought they were in the top fifty percent. The reason why is that those who are not capable lack the capacity to know they're not capable. The hardest part of being a student is to assess yourself properly — to know exactly where you stand and how to improve. Those who struggle are often the most confident. That's the Dunning-Krueger effect. And this helps explain why the world is the way it is, because often the people in power are not capable. They don't know they're not capable. They're confident and they do stupid things.
So now we have three theories: self-control, resilience, and self-assessment. And as educators, as schools, what we can do is devise strategies and curricula to help all students succeed. The problem is that when we actually try this, it doesn't work. If you take a struggling student and you teach him self-control, resilience, and self-assessment, the student doesn't actually get better. The reason why is a very important idea: correlation does not equal causation. Just because things are correlated does not mean they cause each other.
We know that successful people get up early in the morning — at four o'clock in the morning. But just because you get up at four o'clock in the morning does not mean you'll succeed. Just because you work hard, just because you're resilient, just because you have a growth mindset does not mean you'll succeed. But if you're successful, you will get up early in the morning because you're more motivated. If you are successful in life, you will have more self-control. You will have more resilience. You'll be more humble. So if you're rich, you become successful and therefore you will have a growth mindset, self-control, and deliberate practice. But just because you have a growth mindset, deliberate practice, and resilience does not mean you'll succeed.
So the question for us is: why does this happen and ultimately who succeeds? We know for a fact that rich people are much more likely to succeed than poor people. And what we know from macroeconomic studies is that school doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter how well you do in school. If your parents are rich, you'll be successful in life. If your parents are poor, you will not be successful in life. So what's the difference?
Let's look at parenting strategies between rich and poor. There are lots of differences, but let's focus on three major ones. The first major difference is that rich parents speak to their kids more than poor parents. When rich parents speak to their kids, they use higher vocabulary and longer sentences. Poor parents will just say: no, yes, go away. Another major difference is in attitude. Rich parents use a friendly attitude, and poor parents use an authoritarian or command attitude. If you are a rich kid and you touch a stove and burn your hand, the rich parent will say, "Listen, you made a mistake, don't worry about it. Let me explain to you why touching a fire is bad for you — because you'll burn yourself and might have to go to the doctor and you'll feel pain." So the rich parent will spend a lot of time explaining to the child why this is wrong and how not to do it again. The poor parent is like: don't you ever do that again or I'll beat the crap out of you. Pretty simple.
As you can understand, the rich kid will understand that the world is safe and that he is respected in this world. Whereas the poor child will think that the world is scary and he or she must be afraid of adults. This carries on into school — the rich kid goes to school and thinks the teacher is a friend, so he smiles at the teacher and hugs the teacher and the teacher smiles back. But if you're a poor kid and you see the teacher, you're afraid to look at the teacher. You don't smile. You're stressed. And the teacher thinks you might be a problem child.
The third major difference is that rich parents offer stability, while poor parents can only offer volatility. Rich parents have money, so they can afford to keep promises. If I'm a rich parent, I say to my child, "Okay, next week we'll go to Thailand for vacation," and then next week you actually go to Thailand. But if you're a poor parent, money is always an issue, and it's hard to keep promises. "Next week we'll go to McDonald's for lunch" — but then the paycheck isn't enough, so: sorry, we can't go anymore.
Now because of these different parenting styles, we understand why rich kids behave differently from poor kids. So let's look at the idea of self-control. The marshmallow test is not a test of self-control. It's a test of your trust in others. If you believe that the teacher who goes outside will come back and keep his or her promise, then you will not eat that marshmallow. But if you think the teacher is lying to you, you will eat that marshmallow. So it's not really about self-control — it's about your belief and trust in authority figures. If you're rich, you have stability. But if you're poor, you don't have stability. And you're actually better off eating that marshmallow rather than waiting for the second one, because most of the time you will not get that second marshmallow. It's not that poor kids are stupid. Poor kids are rational and they're responding to the circumstances they live in.
And resilience — the idea of resilience is that you believe the world will help you. If you're rich and you believe that everyone helps you, you can be resilient because if you fail, someone will help you get up. If you're poor and you fail, that probably tells you that you should stop doing this. So you don't have much confidence in others. And the idea of self-assessment — well, if you're a poor child who lives under a lot of stress, it's hard for you to be self-reflective, because if you look back at yourself, all you think about is your pain and your stress.
So from these different parenting strategies, we can now explain why different students behave the way they do. This may lead you to think: rather than construct our schools around self-control, resilience, and self-reflection, we should construct our schools around better parenting skills — expose kids to a lot of vocabulary, have teachers who are friendly, and create a lot of stability. We've tried this and it's more effective, but it doesn't really work either. Why? Because the kids come in too late — a lot of their worldview is already established. Then you think: okay, let's change how parents behave. But what you recognize is that no, you can't change how they behave either. So no matter what you do, you end up with massive differences between the poor and the rich. The rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.
So now the question for us is: why is this the case? And it's the case because society is a hierarchy. The hierarchy is usually divided between the rich and the poor, and these two worlds are night and day. As a poor person, if you want to survive, you have to obey authority. But if you're a rich person, the way that you get along with others and maximize your outcome is by negotiating with others. Negotiating — which can also mean debate. Who should be the boss? Let's have a debate and present different evidence to figure out who should be the boss. Negotiation means debate and argument.
This helps us understand why different parents parent their child differently. If you're a poor parent, your responsibility is to make sure your child knows how to obey authority. That's why you command your child. But if you're a rich parent, you want your child to be able to negotiate with authority. And that's why you respect your child and you teach your child how to debate, how to argue, how to negotiate with others. They live in different worlds.
From day one, rich kids know they're playing a different game from poor kids. Poor parents command their child, don't really communicate, and don't keep promises. The reason why poor parents do these three things is not necessarily to improve their child's outcome — they're playing a game to get along with other parents, with family, and with authority. If you're a poor person and the police knows you're a poor person, the police is going to bully you. And if you fight back, you'll probably end up in jail. So it's very important to accept authority and not challenge it. Your boss will command you around, so it's very important that your child knows how to take orders rather than ask questions or debate. Family is about maintaining good relations with those who can most support you, and that often means sharing the same values and copying the same parenting patterns.
And for a poor person, this is the optimal parenting strategy. If you choose to be a friend to your child, if you choose to communicate, if you choose to keep your promises, then your friends and family will think you're doing something wrong. They won't think: what an enlightened parent who has read a lot of parenting books. They're going to think there's something wrong with you.
Let me give you an example from my own life. My wife and I have three kids, and this is how we parent. We give our children a lot of freedom. We don't have them do lots of activities — we don't send them to math class or swimming class or piano class. We just let them run around and play. We communicate a lot. We believe in democracy in our family — if we're going to make a decision together, we want everyone to communicate together. And we tell stories rather than do math drills. We raise our children in a way that's very different from normal Chinese families. Both my wife and I have spent a lot of time talking about parenting. I've read a lot of books about parenting and spent many decades researching the best education possible. And because we do this, we have no friends in China. We have family, but they all think we're crazy.
We do this because for us, what's most important is to make sure that our children are happy and healthy and have a chance to be creative and be successful in life. If you parent the other way, the child will fit into China better. So the goal of parenting — the incentive — is not for your child to succeed. The incentive is for your child to fit into the larger social environment. And that's why it's very hard to change the way people behave. That's why social structures are extremely rigid — because the game people are playing is often just to fit into their environment.
A student asked: is there any way for poor kids to succeed and become like the rich parents you describe? Yes, and that's a really good question. We know that there are certain poor kids who do succeed. For example, I'm a poor kid who succeeded. My family immigrated to Toronto, Canada when I was about six years old and my father was a dishwasher. We were a very poor family. But I succeeded because I left Canada for the United States. Canada is a very rigid place where poor people basically move up a bit but not too far. I was able to succeed because I got a scholarship to study in the United States. So there are opportunities. The problem though is that it means leaving your community. One way to succeed is to abandon your community — but that's high risk. You have to be extremely individualistic to take such a risk. That's why most people don't do it. The safest option is to stay within your community, and that's what will guarantee the best outcome. But if you choose to abandon your community and go somewhere else and try your luck, that's taking a really high risk.
Another possibility is war — that has traditionally and historically been the best mechanism of social mobility. When you go fight a war and you do really well, you get promoted in life. But again, war is high risk because chances are you'll get killed. Not just war, but also revolution. And of course the best way is to marry up. Remember in our very first class we talked about the dating game, where women only want number five and four. The reason why is that five and four are high status. If you're a woman, you don't want to marry into a low-status family because your children will be worse off. Your best option is to take a risk and try to marry into a high-status family. So traditionally, war and marrying up are the two major mechanisms of social mobility. And abandoning your community — basically immigrating to a place that offers more social mobility, which often means the United States.
But another way of saying all this: you have to get really lucky. There are lots of poor people who think they succeeded because they worked hard and are really talented. Look — I was born poor. I lucked into Yale. It's luck. You can work as hard as you want, but the chances are against you. And it takes a certain personality: you're really individualistic, very ambitious, and you have a high risk tolerance. Most people don't have that. So yes, there are certain people who despite their background are able to succeed, but that's often the exception rather than the rule.
Another student asked: can luck be counted as a kind of ability or is it just coincidence? You're absolutely right — luck is a form of strategy. All this is saying is that you are trying to position yourself in a place that allows you to get lucky. I left Canada and went to the United States because I knew that in Canada, it doesn't matter how hard you work — no one cares. But in the United States, if you work really hard, you might get lucky and meet someone who says: wow, you're a really hard worker, I want to promote you. So yes, you can strategize and increase your luck, but it's still luck. Those who succeed are able to think strategically and far ahead, and position themselves in a way that allows them to get lucky. And they often have the characteristics we talked about — self-control, resilience, and the ability to look inward and better understand what they're good at. But the point I'm trying to make is that these people are a minority — one percent of the population, really — and they still depend on luck.
So this leads us to a question. The way I've framed everything, you have poor and rich, and as discussed, they live in their own worlds and don't really connect. They have different parenting strategies, different outlooks. The rich stay with themselves, the poor stay amongst themselves. This looks like a very stable system — equilibrium. So why do societies collapse? Why are there revolutions? Why are there social changes? This looks like a system of equilibrium where because of parenting, people know their place and know how to best strategize about maintaining their place.
The reason there is social change is that this system has a built-in problem. The problem is with the rich. And the reason why is that the rich are taught from day one to negotiate a better outcome. The poor are conditioned to a minimum outcome — if I'm alive and I have a decent job, I'm okay. But the rich are like: no, I need to be the top dog. I need to improve my lot in society. Otherwise what's the point of my life? High expectations versus low expectations. And this is a problem because power is a zero-sum game. Hierarchy is a zero-sum game. Only a few people can be at the top. So eventually you get into a situation where there are too many people with high expectations and not enough powerful positions. This is called elite overproduction. And then what happens is that certain factions of the rich will align with certain factions of the poor against the powers that be.
All revolutions are always between the have-a-lot versus the have-some. It's never between rich and poor. It's always between have-a-lot and have-some. The people who led the Chinese revolution — people like Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping — they were not poor people. They didn't come from poor families, but they weren't rich enough. So the Chinese revolution was really between the urban elite versus the rural elite. If you look at every revolution in human history, that's always been the case. If you go back to Chinese history and look at all these revolutions, they were always led by the middle class or the aspirational class — usually merchants. Merchants were discriminated against heavily in society, but they had money and they wanted to transform their money into power. So when times were bad and people were looking for change, they took the initiative and led people into revolution.
A student asked: how could the elite lead the poor people to follow them into revolution, since revolutions need a huge amount of people? Great question. Revolutions are almost always the same pattern. Over time, because of the structure and the inequality between rich and poor, certain problems arise. The first problem is indebtedness. Because the rich have a monopoly over wealth, for the poor to survive they need to borrow money. But over time, because of interest rates, the poor find themselves in slavery — because if you can't afford to pay back the bank or the rich person, your body is collateral. Not only do you become a slave, but your children become slaves as well. The second issue is landlessness. These are the three most common problems — debt, landlessness, and slavery — that ultimately become the seeds of revolution. The poor get into debt, so they lose their land, and their children and their children's children become slaves because it's impossible to pay back that debt.
So now you have a majority of people who have absolutely no incentive to live. What happens then is that an elite faction says to these people: follow me into revolution and I will clear your debts, I will give you land, and I will end slavery. Every single revolution has been like this. Communists said: we'll create a communist paradise — and what's a communist paradise? It's where debt is canceled, where people are given land, and where no one is a slave. Others say: we'll create a religious paradise. The Islamic Revolution was about this initially. Muhammad said to everyone: we're going to create the kingdom of heaven — and the kingdom of heaven is where people don't have debt, where people have land to feed themselves, and where there are no slaves. If you are a Muslim, you can never be a slave. Look at every single revolution and it's this pattern: over time, because of inequality, people fall into too much debt, become slaves, lose their land. Then, because of elite overproduction, a faction splinters off and in order to obtain power, gets the people on their side.
Look at the Roman civil war — Julius Caesar was saying the same thing. Why was he so popular? Because he was saying to the Roman people: if I become king, I will get rid of your debt, I will free you from slavery, and I will give you land. And that's why they had to kill him. And why is Donald Trump so popular in America right now? Same thing. Americans are in debt — credit cards, student loans, their houses. They believe that Trump, if he became king, would cancel all debts. Because if you cancel all debts, who loses power? It's the rich who lose power. And the rich are the most dangerous to a king.
So again, this is a very similar pattern in human history. It's all game theory. And another way of understanding this is that according to game theory, individuals don't really matter. You have to look at large groups. You have to look at large social trends. You cannot really change the outcome for certain groups of people — like poor kids — unless you look at the overall structure in which they live.
Another student asked: is it the elite who rule the country — those who really have the power — who have the motivation to maintain a society where a certain degree of social mobility is allowed, but not too much? So they can maintain their power, but also give the lower class enough hope to pursue the rich class through means other than revolution, thus preventing the society from collapsing? You're absolutely right. Social mobility is really the best form of governance. As long as you enable people with talent, ability, and ambition to climb up, they'll be happy, and your society will be very stable — and not only stable, but very prosperous and very creative. It doesn't matter what system you have. America in the 1950s was a democracy with a lot of social mobility — people worked really hard and America became very wealthy. But China in the 1950s was a communist system, and in the 1950s people worked really hard as well. Why? Because China was destroyed after decades of war and there were lots of opportunities for social mobility. If you worked hard, you got promoted very quickly. So even though it was a communist, commanding economy rather than a democracy, people worked really hard because they thought that by working hard they could improve their lives. Social mobility is the best form of governance. You don't need democracy. You don't need any particular system. As long as you have social mobility, people will be happy.
The problem though is that over time — less than a generation — all the positions of power are filled. The people with talent who made the country great and wealthy, when they get into power, don't want people like them to replace them. They want their children to replace them. And over time these children accumulate. So what happens is that at the very top, all the positions are filled and there's a waiting list. If you're a poor person who works really hard and is really talented, unfortunately all those positions at the top are already filled and there's also a waiting list. Too bad.
Just look at Chinese history: at the beginning of each dynasty, you had all these talented people pass the civil entrance examination — the keju — and these were really talented people. But then they have children, and they teach their children how to pass the keju. Eventually they're like: you know what, we'll just cheat. They corrupt the keju. Eventually it becomes: whoever can pay to pass the keju will pass the keju. Then all the positions at the very top are filled, there's no more social mobility, and what do people do? They engage in revolution. Look at Hong Xiuquan — he failed the keju, or there was no position at the top for him, so he declared himself the brother of Jesus and started a revolution that claimed tens of millions of lives in China. Why? Because there was no social mobility for him. Fifty years earlier, he would have been a civil servant. Same thing for Mao Zedong — by the time Mao became a university student, the keju had been eliminated. So there was no way for him to climb the ladder anymore. Therefore he had to start engaging in new ideas.
So social mobility is the best way to maintain social harmony, but people have children and they want their children to succeed, and they will arrange a system in a way that only their children can succeed — which screws over everyone else. And then everyone else has no choice but to overthrow the system. Another way of saying this is: game reset. This is what a revolution is. A hundred people are playing a game, ten people are winning and they keep winning, and they can only win. So everyone else is like: screw this game, let's start a new game. The ten people are like: no, we're happy playing this game. They can't agree, so the only thing the other ninety can do is revolution — which allows for a game reset and again allows for social mobility. And that is the course of human history: either you climb up the ladder, or if they don't allow you to climb, you break the game. But unfortunately, once you're in power, you want your children to inherit your power, and so you will rig the game in a way that only your children can succeed. And that's why schools are the way they are — schools for the rich are very different from schools for the poor. Schools for the rich offer a lot of freedom, a lot of creativity, very good teachers. You go to poor schools and it's the complete opposite. The system is set up to make sure that certain people succeed and everyone else fails.