Richard V. Reeves is an educated, white cis-male who works at the Brookings Institution. Naturally, he wants to check his privilege. He's gone the extra mile in fact, writing a whole book on the topic for the benefit of his fellow elites. The title alone is practically a sermon: Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It.
Not sure whether you qualify as a “dream hoarder”? Play the game to find out. You'll be presented with two ladders, two pig-tailed children, and instructions to “help your own child without hurting the chances of someone else's child.” Spoiler alert: you can't. The game is programmed with two outcomes. Choose the hard road of principled meritocracy, and your kid falls out of the top quintile. Boost her up the ladder, and watch some other unhappy urchin slide into miserable mediocrity. Dream hoarder!
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