With the capitalization of talent Gladwell means the degree up to which we make use of the potential of people. How poverty is a constraint on capitalizing talent seems quite clear. Poverty, or should we say social class, has several negative effects on the ability of people to develop their talent, like the costs of education or the necessity to work instead of studying. The organization of our social institutions is also not really hard to understand, although Gladwell uses an unconventional example of the date of birth of persons within sport teams. Apparently the selection date for kids to be part of one generation or the other (January 1) results in an unequal change for those born later during a year, as they have to compete with older kids within their year. Research has shown the top teams to exist largely of people born in the first few months of the year. We can think of other examples as well, like restrictions on baby care to reduce opportunities of women.

The last constraint, that of attitude, is a bit less obvious. It is the general way of thinking and doing someone or a whole society has adopted as paradigmental. As an example Gladwell uses maths. He explains the higher skills in maths of Asian people in comparrison to Western people as to be due to a different approach of the subject. Where an Asian thinks he can be good in maths if he invests time and energy, the Western boy or girl assumes he needs a natural talent for maths to reach a high level of understanding. Gladwell states that this different approach is the result of how things are traditionally done throughout history within a specific culture, for example the different forms of aggriculture in ancient days (very intensive in Asian countries, much less intensive in Western countries).

I think this conclusion is very interesting, but it is also subject to an extensive discussion between essentialist and contextualists,which is clarified by the question why Asian people and Western people adopted a specific type of agriculure. Did they had no choice or did they choose to do so? Were they forced by natural circumstances or was it a personal/cultural preference? Personally I believe that social practices are the determining factor in how people think and do. Then, the question is if there is a possibility to bring about a change in these social practices or if this rather neglects the historical legacy of cultures? In my opinion it could be a leading idea, but results on this level will take years, decades, or probably even longer and steps are small, like attacking the other constraints. How do you see change on the level of attitude and the tools we have to accomplish it?