Editor’s Notes: In this installment of the Game Theory series, Professor Jiang Xueqin of Predictive History explores the deep-seated psychological and social factors that define success and social hierarchy. The lecture challenges conventional wisdom about traits like self-control and resilience, arguing that these characteristics are often a byproduct of economic stability rather than its primary cause. By contrasting the negotiating power of the wealthy with the authoritarian realities of the poor, the video provides a provocative look at why social structures remain rigid and how they eventually reset through revolution. This analysis offers a unique perspective on the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” dynamic through the lens of group dynamics and systemic inequality. (Jan 13, 2026)
TRANSCRIPT:
The Question of Success
PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: Today, we look at the question of success. The question is: who succeeds and why?
We’ve done a lot of research, and we discovered that people who succeed, succeed for certain reasons.
The Marshmallow Test: Delayed Gratification
There is a Columbia psychologist named Walter Mischel. He devised a very famous experiment called the Marshmallow Test. The Marshmallow Test is very easy.
Imagine a room and I invite a four year old or five year old to come into this room. And I have a conversation with him or her. I ask them, “How’s your mother? What do you like to do?” And it’s 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. So just wait for me. And 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.”
And then Walter Mischel, he goes away, and he goes behind the room. And through a see-through mirror, he’s able to see the students as they struggle to contain themselves because, obviously, they want two marshmallows. And there are some students who can, in fact, resist the temptation to eat the first marshmallow and wait for the second marshmallow. And then there are others who cannot.
And Walter Mischel would spend fifty years just tracking them.
What he discovers is this. The students who resist the temptation, who get the second marshmallow, they are much more likely to do better in school. They have higher test scores. They have better careers. Their careers are more stable. They get promoted in their careers. They’re much more able to find a stable relationship. They avoid jail. They avoid drugs. They avoid alcohol. They’re more lean. They’re more fit. They live longer. Better teeth.
And those who cannot resist and eat the first marshmallow right away, they have the opposite effect.
And so the idea is that for Walter Mischel, success means delayed gratification. And all this means is that people who succeed are capable of long term planning. To succeed today, I will make the sacrifices necessary.
So if my friends are playing outside and I need to do my homework, why am I going to stay home and do my homework? Long term planning, what he calls delayed gratification. Or a much more simple way of saying this is the idea of self control, or the idea of emotional regulation. You’re able to keep your emotions in check. If you’re angry, you’re able to calm yourself down.
And so we know about this, and that’s why in school, we focus on the idea of emotional regulation, teaching you how to better control your emotions, how to do long term planning. So that’s one theory of success.
Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset
Another theory of success comes to us from another psychologist named Carol Dweck. And she’s at Stanford. She wrote a book called Mindset. What she tells us is that those who succeed in life have a growth mindset, and those who fail in life have a fixed mindset.
The idea is resilience. Those who have a growth mindset, if they fall or they fail, they see it as an opportunity for them to learn. So they think about what they did wrong, and next time, they’ll do better. And those with a fixed mindset are people who cannot accept the idea of failure, who think that it’s because they’re not capable of improving, and therefore, they give up.
So those with a growth mindset, if they fail, they try harder. Those with a fixed mindset, if they fail, they just give up. And so the idea of resilience.
Deliberate Practice
The third idea of success comes to us from K. Anders Ericsson, who is a Swedish psychologist, and he wants to know why certain people are able to succeed as musicians or athletes. And he creates the idea of deliberate practice.
What he found is that people who want to become athletes or musicians, they work really hard. They practice every day. But people who succeed practice strategically.
So those who work hard just work a long time. But those who work strategically have a plan. The plan is this: What are my goals? How can I achieve these goals? And then how do I improve my plan?
So they’re examining their own practices, and they’re trying to figure out where the weaknesses are, where they can improve. They set up a plan on how to improve, and then they follow this plan. If this plan helps them improve, they stick to the plan. But if the plan doesn’t really work, they change the plan as well.
So 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.
And what K. Anders Ericsson discovered is that if you do this, you’ll succeed at anything.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
And the reason why we know it’s true is there are two American psychologists named Dunning and Kruger.
They have the Dunning-Kruger effect. And so what they did was this.
They ran an experiment. They have five hundred students in a psychology class, first year university. They made every student take an IQ test. And then after they took the IQ test, they asked each student, “How do you think you did on the IQ test? Do you place in the top five percent or the bottom five percent?”
And it turns out that no one got the ranking correct. So those who are in the top five percent in terms of IQ thought they were maybe in the top twenty percent, because for them it was easy, so they assumed for everyone else it was easy as well. But what was dramatic is that those who scored the lowest thought they were average. So the worst five percent in the class thought they were in the top fifty percent, or just average.
And the reason why is those people who are stupid lack the capacity to know they’re stupid.
So what Dunning and Kruger discovered is that the hardest part of being a student is to assess yourself properly, to know exactly where you stand and how to improve. Those who are stupid are often the most confident in the world. That’s what’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect, and this helps explain why the world is the way it is. Because often the people in power are stupid. They don’t know they’re stupid. They were confident and they do stupid things — like Donald Trump.
Three Theories of Success
Alright. So now we have these three theories. We have self control. We have resilience. And we have self assessment. And so as educators, at schools, what we can do is devise strategies and curriculum to help students all succeed.
The problem is that when we actually try this, it doesn’t work. If you take a bad student and you teach them self control, resilience, and self assessment, the student doesn’t actually get better.
Correlation Does Not Equal Causation
The reason why is — and this is a very important idea for you guys to remember — correlation does not equal causation. You guys need to remember this. Just because things are correlated does not mean they cause each other.
So I’ll give you an example. We know that successful people get up early in the morning. They get up at four o’clock in the morning. But just because you get up at four o’clock in the morning does not mean you 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’ll get up early in the morning because you are more motivated. If you are successful in life, you will have more self control. You will have more resilience. You’ll be more humble.
Does that make sense? So if you’re rich, guess what happens? You become successful. And therefore, you will have growth mindset, self control, deliberate practice. But just because you have growth mindset, deliberate practice, and resilience does not mean you succeed.
So the question for us is: why does this happen? And ultimately, who succeeds?
Rich Parents vs. Poor Parents: Parenting Strategies
We know for a fact that rich people are much more likely to succeed than poor people. And in fact, what we know from macroeconomic studies is that school doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter how well you’re going to 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 differences.
The first major difference is that rich parents speak to their kids more than poor parents. High vocabulary, low vocabulary. When rich parents speak to the kids, rich parents will use higher vocabulary, 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. So, for example, if you are a rich kid and you go and touch a stove, and you 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 you might have to go to a doctor, and we will feel pain if you hurt yourself.” 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.”
But 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.
And this carries on into school. Because as a rich kid, you go to school and you think, “Oh, my teacher is my friend.” So you smile at the teacher and you hug the teacher and the teacher smiles back and now you’re friends. 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 are stressed. And the teacher thinks that you might be a problem child.
So the problem with this is that, yes, being an authoritarian parent is effective, but it creates stress in the family. It makes the child feel unsafe.
And this leads to the third major difference between rich parents and poor parents. Rich parents offer stability. Poor parents can only offer volatility.
This is a very simple idea. Rich parents have money so they can afford to keep promises. So I’m a rich parent. I say to my child, “Okay, next week we’ll go to Thailand for vacation.” Guess what? Next week, you guys go to Thailand for vacation.
But if you’re a poor parent, money is always an issue, so it’s hard for you to keep promises. It’s like, “Next week, we’ll go to McDonald’s for lunch,” but your paycheck is not enough, so you’re like, “Sorry, we can’t go anymore.”
Rethinking the Marshmallow Test
And now because of these different parenting styles, we understand why rich kids behave differently from poor kids.
Let’s look at the idea of self control. What is the Marshmallow Test? 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 will keep his or her promise, then you will not eat that marshmallow. But if you think that this teacher is lying to you, then 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. So you’re actually better off eating that marshmallow rather than waiting for that second marshmallow, because guess what? Most of the time, you will not get that second marshmallow.
So it’s not that poor kids are stupid. Poor kids are rational, and they’re responding to the circumstances that they live in.
And resilience. Well, the idea of resilience is that you believe that the world will help you. So 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, if you fail, that probably tells you you shouldn’t be doing this. You probably won’t succeed doing this. So you don’t have much confidence in others.
And the idea of self assessment — looking inward. 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 can think about is your pain and your stress.
Rethinking How We Build Schools
So from these different parenting strategies, we can now explain why different students behave the way they do.
This, of course, may lead you to think: okay, well, then rather than construct our schools around self control, resilience, and self reflection, we should construct our schools around better parenting skills. Which means, hey, let’s construct schools where kids are exposed to a lot of vocabulary, where teachers are friendly, and where there’s a lot of stability.
And we tried this. And it’s more effective, but it doesn’t really work either. Why? Because the kids come in too late.
The Hierarchy of Rich and Poor
PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: A lot of their worldview is already established. Then you’re like, okay. Well, then let’s change how parents behave. And when you do that, what you recognize is that, nope. 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?
It’s the case because society is a hierarchy. And the hierarchy is usually divided between the rich and the poor. And these two worlds are night and day. They’re very very different.
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, the way that you maximize your outcome is by negotiating with others. Negotiating.
Negotiating can also mean debate. Who should be the boss? Well, let’s have a debate and present different evidence to figure out who should be the boss. So negotiation means debate and argument.
Why Rich and Poor Parents Parent Differently
This helps us understand why different parents parent their child differently. If you’re a poor parent, your responsibility is to make sure that your child knows how to obey authority. That’s why you command your child.
But if you are 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. Because they live in different worlds.
Another way of saying this is that from day one, rich kids know that they’re playing a different game from poor kids.
So let’s go back and look at parents. Poor parents command their child, don’t really speak, don’t communicate, and don’t keep promises. So poor parents do these three things. And we know that if they do these three things, the outcome won’t be so good.
And the reason why they do this is that they’re not playing a game to improve their kid’s outcome. They’re playing a game to get along with other parents — colleagues, family, authority. So as a parent, you’re trying to figure out how to negotiate with the police, with your boss, and with your family.
So 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, the police will probably put you in jail. So it’s very important that you accept authority. You don’t challenge authority because if you do, you’ll probably get into trouble.
Your boss — if you’re a poor person, your boss will just command you about. And so it’s very important that your child knows how to take orders. Rather than ask questions, rather than debate, your child must learn how to just follow orders or at least keep his mouth shut.
And then family is about maintaining good relations with those who can most support you. And that often means the same values. So if your family members or your friends are parenting their child in this manner, you’re also going to copy them. Imitation.
And for a poor person, this is the optimal strategy of how to parent. Because if you do it another way — 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 your family will think that you’re doing something wrong. They won’t think, “Oh my god, you are an enlightened parent who’s read a lot of parenting books, great for you.” They’re going to think there’s something wrong with you.
A Personal Example of Alternative Parenting
So let me give you an example of this. My wife and I have three kids, and this is how we parent our kids. First of all, we give our child a lot of freedom. We don’t have our kids do lots and lots of activities. We don’t send our kids to math class. We don’t send our kids to swimming class. We don’t send our kids to piano class. We just let our kids run around and play.
The other thing that we do is we communicate a lot with our child. We believe in democracy in our family. If we’re going to make a decision together, we want everyone to communicate together. A normal Chinese family will just have a very tight schedule. And the other thing that we do that’s different is we tell stories. Other Chinese families will do math.
So we raise our children in a way that’s very different from normal Chinese families, from the way that you’ve been raised. And we do this because both my wife and I spend a lot of time talking about parenting. I’ve read a lot of books about parenting. I spent many decades researching the best education possible. And so that’s why we raise our children in this way.
And guess what? Because we do this, we have no friends in China. We have family but they all think we’re crazy. But we do this because for us, what’s most important is to make sure that our children are happy and healthy and that they have a chance to be creative and be successful in life.
Because I think that if you do it this way, the child will not be creative, will not be successful. But if you do it this way, your child will fit into China better. So parenting — the goal, the incentive — is not for your child to succeed. The incentive is for your child to fit into China or the larger social environment that you are in.
And that’s why it’s very hard to change the way people behave. And that’s why social structures are extremely rigid, because the game they’re playing is often just to fit into their environment.
Does that make sense, guys? Any questions before I move on?
Q&A: Can Poor Kids Succeed?
AUDIENCE QUESTION: So for poor families, is there any way for the poor kids to succeed and feed the rich parent you described in the future?
PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: That’s a really good question. So we know that there are certain poor kids who do succeed. For example, I’m a poor kid who succeeded. We immigrated to Toronto, Canada when I was six years old and my father was a dishwasher. So 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. But I was able to succeed because I was able to get a scholarship to go study in the United States. So there are opportunities. The problem, though, is that it means leaving your community.
So 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. Because if you think about it, the safest option for you is to stay within your community. That’s what’s going to guarantee you the best outcome.
But if you choose to abandon your community and just say, “You know what? I’m going to go somewhere else and try my luck.” That’s taking a really high risk. So to succeed, you have to take high risk.
So another possibility is war. That traditionally, historically, has 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 get killed. So not just war but also revolution.
And of course, the best way is to marry up. And that’s why — remember in our very first class, we talked about the dating game, where women only want fives and fours. The reason why is that fives and fours are high status and threes, twos, and ones are low status. So if you’re a woman, you don’t want to marry into a low status family because your children will be screwed over. Your best option is to take a risk, gamble, and try to marry into a high status family.
So traditionally, war and marrying up are the two major mechanisms of social mobility. In today’s world, abandoning community can also lead to success — basically, immigrating to a place that offers more social mobility, which often means the United States.
But another way of saying this is you have to get really lucky. So there are lots of poor people who think, “I succeeded because I worked hard and I’m 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, you’re very ambitious, and you have 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 to the rule as opposed to the rule itself.
Q&A: Is Luck a Form of Ability?
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Can luck be counted as a kind of ability or is it just coincidence?
PROFESSOR JIANG XUEQIN: That’s a really good question. So luck is a form of strategy. And all this is saying is that you’re trying to position yourself in a place that allows you to get lucky.
So I left Canada and I 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, then you might get lucky and you might meet someone who’s like, “Wow, you’re a really hard worker. I want to promote you.”
So you’re right in that, yes, you can strategize and increase your luck, but it’s still luck. And 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 that we talked about — self control, resilience, and the ability to look inward and better understand what you’re good at.
So it takes a combination of factors. But the point I’m trying to make is that these people are only a minority — one percent of the population, really. And they still depend on luck.
Why Do Societies Collapse? The Problem of Elite Overproduction
Any more questions before I move on? Okay. So this leads us to a question: the way that I frame everything, you have poor and you have rich. And as discussed, they live in their own world and they don’t really connect with each other. They have different parenting strategies. They have different outlooks. The rich stay with themselves. The poor stay amongst themselves.
So this looks like a very stable system. Stability. Or the word we can use is equilibrium. Now the question then is 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 people know how to best strategize about maintaining their place. So why is there social change?
The reason why is that this system has problems. It’s stable, but the main problem is the rich. And the reason why is that the rich are taught from day one to negotiate a better outcome.
Another way of saying this is that the poor want the minimum outcome. The rich want the maximum outcome. The poor are like, “You know what? If I’m alive, if 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?” So they have high expectations.
And this is a problem because power is a zero sum game. Hierarchy is a zero sum game. So only a few people can be at the top. So eventually, you get into a situation where there are too many rich people and not enough powerful positions. And this is what’s called elite overproduction.
And then what happens is that in order to get power, certain factions of the rich will align with certain factions of the poor against the powers that be. So 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.”
So the people who led the Chinese revolution — people like Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping — they were not poor people. They came from poor families, but they weren’t rich enough. So the Chinese revolution was really between the urban elite versus the rural elite. The “have a lot” versus the “have some.”
If you look at every revolution in human history, that’s always been the case. You go back to Chinese history and you look at all these revolutions that started in China, it was always led by the middle class or the aspirational class — usually merchants.
Revolutions, Debt, and Social Mobility
JIANG XUEQIN: Because they were discriminated heavily in society, but they had money. And they wanted to transform their money into power. And so when times were bad, people were looking for change, they took the initiative and led people into revolution.
Does it make sense, guys? Alright. Any questions? Yeah. Alright.
The Seeds of Revolution: Debt, Slavery, and Landlessness
AUDIENCE QUESTION: So you said the revolution was initially like, within those rich people, so how could they lead the poor people to follow them, to start the revolution? Because revolution needs a huge amount of people, like the public base to initiate.
JIANG XUEQIN: Okay. Great question. So revolutions are almost the same. So over time, because of the structure, because of the inequality between rich and poor, certain problems arise.
So these problems are extremely common. 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 you can’t afford to pay back the bank or the rich person, then your body is collateral. So you become a slave.
But not only do you become a slave, but your children become slaves as well. So slavery becomes a very common problem. And then the third issue, of course, is landlessness.
So these are the three most common problems that ultimately become the seeds of revolution. The poor get into debt, and so they lose their land, and their children become slaves. Their children’s children become slaves as well. Because of interest rates, it’s impossible for you to pay back that debt.
So now you have a majority of people who have absolutely no incentive to live. So what happens now is that an elite say to these people, “Follow me into revolution and I will clear your debts. I will give you land and I will end slavery.” And that’s it.
Every Revolution Follows the Same Pattern
JIANG XUEQIN: Every single revolution has been like this. There have been different names. So for example, communists are like, “We’ll create a communist paradise.” What’s a communist paradise? A communist paradise is where debt is canceled, where people are given land, and where no one’s a slave.
Another is like, “We’ll create a religious paradise.” Islam, for example. The Islamic revolution was about this initially. Later on, it changed. And Mohammed said to everyone, “We’re going to create the kingdom of heaven.” What’s the kingdom of heaven? A kingdom of heaven is where people don’t have debt, where people have land to feed themselves, and where there are no slaves. So if you are a Muslim, you can never be a slave.
So look at every single revolution, it’s this pattern. Whereas over time, based on inequality in society, you have people who fall into too much debt, they become slaves, they have no land, and then because of elite overproduction, you have this faction that splinters off and who, in order to obtain power, get the people on their side.
And you 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 of slavery, and I will give you land.” And that’s why they had to kill him.
Why is Trump so popular in America right now? Same thing, where Americans are in debt — credit cards, student loans, their houses — and so they believe that if Donald Trump were to come into power, if he were to become king, what’s the first thing a king does? What the first united king always does is cancel all debts. Because if you cancel all debts, who loses power? It’s the rich who lose power. And it’s the rich who are most dangerous to a king.
Does that make sense? So again, this is a very similar pattern in human history. It’s all game theory.
Any more questions, guys? Ask one more question, then we’ll break. Is this clear to you guys?
Social Mobility as the Best Form of Governance
AUDIENCE QUESTION: So like, is it the society or like just the elite that really rule the country, or who really have the power and have the motivations to maintain a society where a certain degree of social mobility is allowed, but not really big social mobility, so that firstly they can maintain their power, but second, they give their lower class people a hope to get into the rich class, but not using revolutions or other things that will turn this society into collapse?
JIANG XUEQIN: Yeah. Look. You’re absolutely right. Social mobility is really the best form of governance. As long as you enable people with talent and ability and ambition to climb up, they’ll be happy, and your society will be very stable. But not only will it be very stable, it will be very prosperous, very creative. It doesn’t matter what system you have.
So the example is — America in the 1950s was a democracy and there was a lot of social mobility. And so people worked really hard and America became very wealthy. But guess what? In China in the 1950s, China was not a democracy. It was a communist system. But in the 1950s, people worked really hard as well. Why? Because China was destroyed after decades of war. There were lots of opportunities for social mobility. If you worked hard, you got promoted very quickly in the system. So even though it was a communist system, not a capitalist system, even though it was a command economy rather than a democracy, people worked really hard because they thought that by working hard, they could improve their lives.
So social mobility is the best form of governance. You don’t need democracy. You don’t need any system. As long as you have social mobility, people will be happy.
The Collapse of Social Mobility
JIANG XUEQIN: The problem though is that over time, less than a generation, all the positions of power are filled. So the people with talent who made the country great, who made the country wealthy — when they get into power, they don’t want people like them to replace them. They want their children to replace them. And over time, these children are a lot. So what happens is at the very top, all the positions are filled, and there’s a waiting list as well. So if you are a poor person who works hard, really talented, unfortunately, all those positions at the top are filled already. And there’s also a waiting list, so too bad.
And again, you just look at Chinese history. At the beginning of the dynasty, you had all these talented people take the civil service entrance examination, the Keju, and these are really top people. But then what happens is that they have children and they teach their children how to do well on the Keju, and then eventually they’re like, “You know what? We’ll just cheat.” So they corrupt the Keju, and then eventually, “You know what? Whoever can pay to pass the Keju will pass the Keju.” And then all the positions at the very top are filled. There’s no more social mobility. So what do people do? They engage in revolution.
So you look at Hong Xiuquan. He failed the Keju, or there was no position at the top for him, so he believed he became the brother of Jesus. And he started this revolution that claimed tens of millions of lives in China. Why? Because there’s no social mobility for him. Fifty years prior, he would have been a civil servant.
Same thing for Mao Zedong. By the time that Mao Zedong became a university student, the Keju had been eliminated. So there’s no way for him to climb the ladder anymore. Therefore, he had to start engaging in new ideas.
Revolution as a Game Reset
JIANG XUEQIN: So you’re absolutely right in that social mobility is the best way to maintain social harmony, but people have children and they want the children to succeed. And they will arrange a system in a way that only their children can succeed, which screws over everyone else, and so they have no choice but to overthrow the system.
Or another way of saying this is: game reset. This is what a revolution is.
Another way of saying this is that a hundred people are playing a game, ten people are winning, and they keep on winning, and they can only win. So everyone else is like, “Screw this game. Let’s start a new game.” And the ten people are like, “Nope. We’re happy playing this game.” They can’t agree, so the only thing the other people can do is a revolution, which allows for a game reset, which now 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 up the ladder, then you’ll just break the game.
But unfortunately, again, 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 the schools are the way they are. Schools for the rich are very different from schools for the poor. Schools for the rich, there’s a lot of freedom, there’s a lot of creativity, the teachers are very good. You go to poor schools, and it’s the complete opposite. And the reason why is the system is set up to make sure that certain people succeed and everyone else fails.
Does that make sense, Alan? Great. Any more questions, guys? Alright. I’ll see you guys next class.
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