alger

So we end up with this Horatio Alger mythos born of the dissonance between success and merit.

By addressing socioeconomic discrepancies in education across the color spectrum it's possible to redistribute wealth through a Horatio Alger ethos generation after generation.

I'm no Horatio Alger character; I probably can't afford to live in the Bay Area even now -- so I don't.

It's kitschy schlock that makes Horatio Alger look like Voldemort.

Of course none of this happened, the system is fair, everyone is born on a level playing field in this American system of Horatio Alger stories where anyone with gumption and a work ethic can be rich...

Horatio Alger was a mythologist, not a documentarian.

AWS isn't some scrappy upstart from a Horatio Alger novel.

I pulled myself up by the bootstraps though and learned Python/Django web dev, real horatio alger style, and now I live the life of a well paid consultant in Astoria, NYC.

They shouldn't feel guilty, but if thy were hired by their friend in the early 2000's, with no programming experience, and the friends father set up the Everything; Don't act like you were the Horatio Alger of the Computer industry.

The dominant clique here now will laugh at you for saying this, and accuse you of believing in Horatio Alger stories, and will tell you that all success is good luck, and that you can claim no credit for your work and any resulting success.

There's a particularly powerful passage near the end where Simon flat out shatters the Horatio Alger myths that many middle-class suburbanites cling to, particularly the idea that should they find themselves in that situation, they'd simply apply a little Puritan gumption and work their way out their unfortunate circumstances.

Not that you might not be able to wage your own Horatio Alger victory over the short or perhaps even longer term, but the fundamental issue is reduced real growth rates within the economy as a whole, very likely caused by increasing constraints on energy flows, availability, and costs.

A good friend of mine once described pg as a "modern-day Horatio Alger for hackers".

The rags-to-riches "Horatio Alger" story has been a myth in the US for quite a well, buoyed by anecdotes that are predicated on luck.

I take this as the "Horatio Alger" myth: you are born to a dock worker, and end up President of the USA, or CEO of a Big Company, a unique trajectory only possible in America.

From my perspective, it's not so much that there is an anti-meritocracy trend in America, as that America has classically had a popular culture of "if you work hard, you will succeed" that has been taken to the extreme (Horatio Alger, as an example).

Horatio Alger, as long as he spends less than he makes, is a source of infinite money.

A real Horato Alger's; I'll sleep in the mansion, and you sleep in the detached house!' Love that mom!

Your success is surely due to your hard work and Alger-like moral superiority, and not the fact that you're tall, attractive, and suave.