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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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I read this paper a while ago but I think the comparison group for a lot of their metrics isn't the average person but people who were similarly wealthy in 1850 or 1860 but who owned fewer slaves. I remember reading it and being confused as to why the descendants of people who experienced a large negative wealth shock ended up better off then people who were similarly wealthy but didn't lose as much wealth.

For what it's worth the authors of that paper reject genetics as an explanation and think it has to do with sons of families that lost slaves ended up leveraging their families accumulated social status to marry much richer than average.