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chapter five Broader Consequences for Society Engineered children could suffer considerably if regarded as freaks by those who were not engineered. But there is another factor that would significantly affect how engineered persons were viewed by others : genetic engineering is likely to be unaffordable for large segments of society. As discussed earlier, IVF, which would be a necessary first step in genetically modifying an embryo, costs about $50,000 for each live birth. Since this is the median household income in the United States,1 it is clear that many Americans (not to mention those living in poorer countries) would lack the resources to pay for IVF, let alone for the genetic engineering. No doubt costs would come down over time, but by then it might be too late. In Nancy Kress’s novel Beggars in Spain, only two of the original Sleepless children are born to wealthy parents. This makes sense, explains one of the children, because “rich people don’t have their children genetically modified to be superior—they think any offspring of theirs already is superior. . . . We Sleepless are upper-middle class, no more. The children of professors, scientists, people who value brains and time.”2 Kress’s view seems highly improbable, however. In a future in which genetic manipulation can confer exceptional abilities, wealthy parents are bound to want to buy their children whatever advantages are being marketed. It is much more likely that only families with substantial wealth will be able to engineer their children, at least initially. As I described in my earlier book Wondergenes, the families that were able to avail themselves of genetic technologies would be the most attractive, strongest, most graceful, most intelligent, most charismatic, and most inventive, and they will run the most successful businesses. All of these advantages will be rolled into the same persons. They will enjoy decisive advantages over everyone else in all realms of life—sports and beauty contests, game and talent shows, entertainment and the arts, admission to the best educational institutions, entry into the professions, political office and government appointment, getting 91 92 the hazards of evolutionary engineering rich or richer, and grabbing the most desirable mates. They will attain a monopoly over the best things in life, and their position at the pinnacle of society will be unassailable.3 And remember that, as a result of germ line genetic engineering, these advantages would be passed on to their offspring, creating what I call the new “genobility.” Already, our society is being destabilized by the growing rift between rich and poor. As I pointed out in my book The Price of Perfection, “corporate executives earn hundreds of times more than their workers, compared to just an 11-to-1 ratio in Japan and a 22-to-1 ratio in Britain. The 300,000 Americans with the highest incomes earned 440 times more than those in the bottom half of the country in terms of income, and their income almost equaled that of the bottom 150 million.”4 In 2006, just over half of household income was concentrated in the top 20 percent of Americans.5 Census data show that the top 20 percent now own 84 percent of the nation’s wealth.6 George H. Bush joked about this to a wealthy audience in 2000: “What an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base.”7 But it’s no joke. A professor at the University of California puts it succinctly: “Just 10% of the people own the United States of America.”8 What’s holding our country together in spite of this growing inequality arguably is a persistent belief that we still enjoy equality of opportunity . In a recent poll, a random sample of 5,500 respondents grossly underestimated wealth disparities in the United States, guessing that the richest 20 percent of the population only owned 58 percent of the wealth, rather than the true figure, 84 percent.9 We believe that our kids can go to college even if we didn’t, and that anyone who works hard can do well. But if the American Dream were exposed as a myth, then liberal democracy would be in danger of collapsing. And nothing is likely to threaten the belief in equality of opportunity as much as inequality engineered into our genes. As I described in Wondergenes, if the oligarchy that already wields disproportionate social and political power obtained preferential...

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