A smidge of hope, a new take on meritocracy, and a game of musical chairs – three interesting things from Piketty and Sandel’s book
From the book Equality, What It Means and Why It Matters, by Piketty and Sandel. (Yes, that Piketty), here are the first three interesting things I got from it. A future blog post will give a few more.
#1 – A much-craved dash of encouragement! In the U.S. today, the economic and social inequality are at record highs. Yet, Sandel and Piketty agree that the long arc of history bends toward more, rather than less, equality.
“the numbers . . . about today’s high inequality levels are correct, but they were even worse 100 years ago. They were even worse 200 years ago.. . . The good news is these are battles that can be won, and they have been won in the past.”
#2 – Novel ideas about shifting the meritocracy myth
Sandel calls it “meritocratic hubris”, the idea that you have earned all that you have. For example, take the child whose parents buy a home in a decent-school neighborhood. The parents were able to do that because the federal government did not exclude them from those neighborhoods; that is, they were not African American or Black. This child has many resources for future success that cannot be replaced with grit. He did not earn his parents’ skin color or the quality of the school.
Sandel calls for ways to “lessen the sense that where one ends up is all one’s own doing”. For example, having university admission determined by lottery among qualified students would highlight that luck plays a big role in life – from the luck of being born after mortgage companies “redlining” became illegal to having privileged parents.
#3 – All work deserves respect and dignity
The rugged individual capitalist philosophy says that working class people could have worked harder, gone to college and be in a high-paying job. Sandel and Piketty point out that we need the millions of workers who fill the not-high-paying jobs. It’s like a game of musical chairs. Having more people able to compete for the high-paying chairs – sending more people to college, for example – does not solve anything. The solution is to make more chairs, more jobs that grant a person the dignity of having shelter, food, and basic life goods.
Equality is a short book packed with interesting things. Stay tuned for the next round of nuggets!
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