
The American dream of equal opportunity is in peril. America's economic inequality is shocking, poverty threatens to become a heritable condition, and our healthcare system is crumbling despite ever increasing costs. In this thought-provoking book, Edward D. Kleinbard demonstrates how the failure to acknowledge the force of brute luck in our material lives exacerbates these crises — leading to warped policy choices that impede genuine equality of opportunity for many Americans. What's Luck Got to Do with It? combines insights from economics, philosophy, and social psychology to argue for government's proper role in addressing the inequity of brute luck. Kleinbard shows how well-designed public investment can blunt the worst effects of existential bad luck that private insurance cannot reach and mitigate inequality by sharing the costs across the entire risk pool, which is to say, all of us. The benefits, as Kleinbard shares in a wealth of data, are economic as well as social — a more inclusive economy, higher national income, and greater life satisfaction for millions of Americans. Like it or not, our lives and opportunities are determined largely by luck. Kleinbard shows that while we can't undo every instance of misfortune, we can offer a path to not just a fairer America, but greater economic growth, more broadly shared.
This book investigates how the failure to account for the role of brute luck in individual outcomes leads to ineffective public policy and the erosion of the American Dream. Edward D. Kleinbard, a legal and tax scholar, utilizes a multidisciplinary framework to analyze the intersection of economics, philosophy, and social psychology. He argues that government intervention is necessary to mitigate the systemic inequities caused by uncontrollable life circumstances, proposing that public investment can foster a more inclusive and productive economy.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Experts and readers frequently note the academic rigor and interdisciplinary approach Kleinbard brings to the discussion of social policy. The text is recognized as a significant contribution to the debate on the moral and economic justifications for government-led social safety nets.
Page Count:
320
Publication Date:
2021-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190943599
ISBN-13:
9780190943592
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