Everyone likes the idea of equal opportunity. This economist thinks it’s a fantasy.:
Another remarkable feature of the surname data is how seemingly
impervious social mobility rates are to government interventions. In all
societies, what seems to matter is just who your parents are. At the
extreme, we see in modern Sweden an extensive system of public education
and social support. Yet underlying mobility rates are no higher in
modern Sweden than in pre-industrial Sweden or medieval England.
There was one case where government interventions did seem to promote
mobility, which was in Bengal, in India. There the strict quota system
in educational institutions had benefited significantly people with
surnames associated with the Scheduled Castes.