Reynolds’ Law

Reynolds’ Law « The View from Alexandria
"The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have:

If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people.

But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class.

Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them."