Lima and Social Mobility

Made it to Lima without a hitch, and had something of a dia de comida Estadounidense. Got a burger at McDonald's (although I did, admittedly, get it with ají). And I got an Americano (no surprise there) at the Starbucks across the street. One of these days (possibly tomorrow), I also have plans to try out the San Isidro KFC.

I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that both Starbucks and McDonald's is better in Peru than in the US. This just goes to support my theory that Latinos make better fast food (maybe better food in general) than we gringos do.

As I was wandering around the city today (the ritzy part of the city, as it turns out), I was struck by three thoughts in quick succession.

1. "Man. It's fantastic how well these guys here are doing economically. Walking around San Isidro is like walking around Yonkers, without all of the terrible taste. These guys really have it made."
2. "I wonder if the prosperity on display here is only a result of old money appearing in a new way, or if there is really some upward mobility going on here, with the generation of a new Peruvian middle class. It probably wouldn't be any good if all these beautifully-designed houses were just new homes for old money."
3. "I don't think I've ever read any political science research that examines social mobility as an independent variable. This could be the missing control variable from Acemoglu and Robinson/Boix's theory on inequality and democratization."

So folks, am I right about that? Have we political scientists totally missed the boat on examining social/economic mobility?

The way I'm thinking about this is as follows:

A and R (and Boix) argue that the implementation of democracy is basically a way for the poor to ensure that they get wealth redistributed to them, over the long term. As such, democratization will tend not to take place at very low levels of inequality (not much to redistribute) or at high levels of inequality (elites will fight like hell to keep their wealth from all getting taken away). But there's no evidence cross-nationally of this.

What if, however, (a) you could find societies with very high levels of inequality, but also high levels of social mobility--lots of very rich and very poor people, and not much of a middle class, but where it's relatively easy to move from one class to the other, and (b) people would be willing to put off democratization because they know that they have a pretty good chance of making it if they try hard.

This might mean that you could have a lot of inequality but not much demand for democratization.

A further extension of this idea might be that, in some places, democratization is particularly desirable not only for economic purposes (redistribution of wealth), but because there is a social stigma placed on things associated with inequality (racial differences, class differences, etc.) These stigma (or whatever) carry a non-economic cost that might hurt more than poverty. Democratization might be a way to get rid of this stigma, or take off some of its edge.

In this theoretical formulation, the presence or absence of race-based or class-based social stigma might also be an important causal variable.

Anyways, somebody should do this (probably not me) because it would be pretty easy to measure:

Q1: Of what social class do you consider yourself a member: (a) lower class, (b) lower-middle class, (c) middle class, (d) upper-middle class, or (e) upper class?
Q2: Would you say that your parents were members of the: (a) lower class, (b) lower-middle class, (c) middle class, (d) upper-middle class, or (e) upper class?
Q3: What kind of chances do you think your children will have to join a different (higher) socioeconomic class from you? (a) no chance, (b) very low chance, (c) low chance, (d) moderate chance, (e) moderately high chance, (f) high chance.