To ensure an equal start for all children, we reject “genetic determinism” and delay the implementation of technology in the name of ethics. However, while we are immersed in moral fastidiousness, capital is already converting the secrets of genes into currency. While the public sector closes its eyes, shouting the slogan “all humans are equal,” those with vast capital are boarding a “genetic escalator”—reading, correcting, and optimizing their children’s genetic potential in advance.
“Private Genome”: Piercing the Public Vacuum
When the state restricts genetic testing to disease diagnosis for the sake of ethical consensus, the market moves swiftly. Through overseas testing or expensive private services, wealthy parents identify their child’s intelligence, concentration, and physical traits early on. They “proactively” build a customized educational environment tailored to the child’s genotype. While the public sector ponders universal welfare, capital has already completed personalized optimization.
The Wealth Gap in Talent Expression: Imbalance of “Discovery” and “Investment”
The true tragedy does not end with simply knowing the information. Parents who understand their child’s genetic potential reduce the child’s trial and error. Instead of forcing expensive tutoring on a child who lacks mathematical talent, they concentrate capital on maximizing an innately gifted artistic sense.
Conversely, ordinary children who do not know their genotype consume energy through countless trials and errors. Ultimately, capital maximizes the “efficiency of effort” through genetic information, which leads to a disparity in the speed of self-actualization. Talent is no longer a product of chance; it is becoming a “planned product” discovered and processed by capital.
The Paradox of Ethics: Widening the Gap While Guarding Equality
The reason we cite ethics to prevent the publicization of genetic technology is to prevent discrimination. Paradoxically, however, this “prohibition” confines the technology to the black market and drives up its price. As a result, information becomes more asymmetric, and the opportunity to manifest genetic potential becomes the exclusive property of the wealthy. In trying to uphold ethics, we are instead solidifying a “genetic spoon” class theory.
How to Prevent the Polarization of Self-Actualization
We must now change the question. Instead of asking “Is it ethical to read genes?”, we must contemplate: “How can we pull genetic information, now monopolized by capital, into the public domain to turn it into a universal opportunity?”
Technology does not stop. Capital is always faster than ethics. If receiving the optimal environment to realize one’s genetic potential is a child’s right, that right should be guaranteed within a public system, not by the thickness of a parent’s wallet. While we turn away from technology, the massive glacier of a “genetic gap” may be splitting the very foundation of our society.
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