you say that horatio alger is dead. so how does this play into that argument? >> right.rtable fact. i think this is part of the same conversation. and this is not about blaming groups that are disadvantaged. the reason they are disadvantaged is slavery and discrimination. but there are still some people rising from very low -- you know, modest backgrounds to positions of affluence. >> and misery. >> and some groups more than others. there is a striking study in los angeles that, you know, children of vietnamese, chinese and korean parents, you think they must all be the children of engineers. that's not true. it's bi-modal. half of those kids -- some of them just have a grade school education and restaurant workers and factory workers and show the same amount of exceptional upward mobility. >> we have one more thing after we take a break. we'll be right back. nistan, in . orbiting the moon in 1971. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection. and because usaa

you find that older americans still believe in the myth of horatio alger in larger numbers, where youngermericans are much less likely to believe that. much less likely to say that the rich people got there because of hard work and talent and are more likely to say that because -- that they got there because they were born into privilege. part of the corollary of this is a greater degree of class consciousness. the stereotype is that all americans think of themselves as middle-class. actually, a lot of young americans now referred themselves as lower class, referring to themselves as have- nots. this is an attitude historically associated with europe. clash cap -- class consciousness, the belief in rising economic economy, but we are now seeing much more amongst younger americans. , if theser beinart attitudes continue, what does it mean for the united states and its future? caller: in the essay i argue that it is not a bad thing that younger americans are rebelling against some of these myths, because those myths have not been working out for them in practice. what good is it to claim th