The Cognitive Elite

Perhaps the main focus of The Bell Curve is on what the authors term 'the cognitive elite'. The cognitive elite are those members of American society that both have high IQs and positions of power, influence and resources when it comes to occupation. They are elites in the sense that they are smarter and more powerful than the large majority of Americans.

For much of American history, those with high IQs and those who were rich were not often the same people. The rich were not always the ones with great technical skill or large vocabularies, but were those who struck it rich through entrepreneurial skill or inherited money from one who did. But as time progresses, those with high IQs can be selected for by intelligence testing. Those with high IQs are on average more productive than those with low IQs. As a result, there...