A question I have thought about a lot is what to do about the increasing percentage of people who lack the mental capacity to function in the modern world. I have seen estimates that it takes an IQ of about 106 to function well in a modern economy compared to perhaps 85 in 1870. That leaves out a lot of people, and the percentage left out is increasing as we absorb immigrants from Mexico who have average IQ's of about one standard deviation (15 points) less than 106. I don't have a solution, and it doesn't appear that politicians do either. When we consider what has happened in public education over the last 40 years, it appears that "dumbing down" has been the approach. This has caused a large increase in the number of private schools. When I was young in Texas most people, even the children of millionaires, went to public schools. Now even middle class people are sending their children to private schools, and the trend is accelerating. I suspect this is leading to even more "dumbing down" of public schools. The long term effect will be a "dumbing down" of our entire economy. Combine that with the Democrat's attack on capital, and I think the long-term outlook for the United States is not good. The Democrat's solution to what to do about those who are not smart enough to thrive in meritocracy is some form of collectivism. The United States experience with Capitalism shows that it is better for the lower IQ people than Socialism in terms of their physical well being. But, as the percentage of people with sub-par intelligence increases it becomes more likely that Democrat's will be able to implement thier collectivist agenda. The only solution I can see is to improve the education of those folks with lower IQ's, but so far no one has had much success in doing that.

An example of what could happen here can be seen recent events in Venezuala. There large numbers of illiterate poor people from other countries came in and voted into power a socialist dictator. Now a lot of the smarter people are leaving the country. I'm sure that the Democrat's (and Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee) who supported Chavez expect his socialist regime to do well. We'll have to wait and see how it works out.