ITEM DETAILS
video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82_5oza3EkE
Strict and sobering analysis with a clear outlook on the future
Economics and society
Meritocracy, economic turmoil, and the broken promises of the West
[As usual, both the thumbnail and the title are sensationalist and misleading.]
~~~
Principal ideas from Daniel Markovits:
Training REALLY works.
Meritocracy and equality of opportunity are not the same thing.
When inequality of outcomes gets big enough, equality of opportunity becomes impossible.
If the problem is structural, actually focusing on the corruption is a way that the system doesn't get challenged.
Structural change is hard, and that's what the system needs.
The old elite weren't very smart, and they weren't very hard working.
Any system for creating an elite, as it gets older and older, will tend towards a more insular elite.
Economic inequality is deeply corrosive of the social order.
We have this feeling that if we give up on growth, we're just giving up.
250 years ago, almost everybody was poor. 80% of the world in 1800 lived on less than $2 a day - in current dollars.
The reason why today only 10% of the world lives on less than $2 a day, which is immorally too much but very different from 80%, is growth.
Growth is an enormous moral accomplishment. At the same time, growth cannot continue.
~~~
book
The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite
~~~
Principal ideas from Daniel Markovits:
Training REALLY works.
Meritocracy and equality of opportunity are not the same thing.
When inequality of outcomes gets big enough, equality of opportunity becomes impossible.
If the problem is structural, actually focusing on the corruption is a way that the system doesn't get challenged.
Structural change is hard, and that's what the system needs.
The old elite weren't very smart, and they weren't very hard working.
Any system for creating an elite, as it gets older and older, will tend towards a more insular elite.
Economic inequality is deeply corrosive of the social order.
We have this feeling that if we give up on growth, we're just giving up.
250 years ago, almost everybody was poor. 80% of the world in 1800 lived on less than $2 a day - in current dollars.
The reason why today only 10% of the world lives on less than $2 a day, which is immorally too much but very different from 80%, is growth.
Growth is an enormous moral accomplishment. At the same time, growth cannot continue.
~~~
book
The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite
Yale University School of Law
February 18th, 2025
The Institute of Art and Ideas
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