Tryals

Imagine we could agree that the best public policy was one that conferred the greatest overall capability gains upon society-at-large, now and into the future. Capability is about agency—that is, about maximizing the range and variety of choices available to individuals, especially those who’ve had the fewest choices in the past because of poverty, compromised health or limited education. Capability gains assume that the capacity of individuals to exercise more meaningful c

In our modern wealthy societies, we tend to overlook the profound inequalities that exist between generations. Children and adolescents certainly do not enjoy equal standing in our society—they are denied influence and other rights of citizenship. For good reason. Their brains are not yet mature—they do not have the experience, maturity and reasoning capacity to make the best decisions required of responsible citizens. Then again, neither do many of the adult members of o

Every species that survives must develop strategies for protecting its youngest members from immediate dangers as well as ensuring they receive sufficient growth resources until they are able to manage for themselves (and in turn produce another generation). But there are few such species advantages (called fitness payoffs) in caring for members past the age of breeding and juvenile-rearing. Adults beyond reproductive age are more likely to be a burden, a drain on scarce re

To make sense of inequality, we need to talk about elites. Where do they come from? Nature does not assign them social status. Yet she (with fortuna) hands out very different lots. Talents, opportunities and lucky breaks are granted abundantly to some, sparingly to others. Even the capacity for hard, persistent and focused work is a kind of unequal talent. But once these favored few have gained even a small advantage, mastered their environment slightly better than the

Perhaps you are uncomfortable with the drift of this discussion. Equality has never existed and never will! you would say. It’s a waste of time to talk about something that can never be changed. Indeed, the single-minded pursuit of social equality will divert valuable attention and resources from other, more manageable problems. (Just imagine a government bureaucracy that existed for no other purpose than to spot social inequalities and trample them out of existence. The

Inequality seems both an inevitable and an intolerable threat to a free and democratic society. We cannot reasonably expect to be rid of it, yet we dare not allow it to flourish without constraints. So how much inequality can a democratic society tolerate? What kinds or degrees of inequality are compatible with a prosperous, efficient and just society? What kinds are not? What can we do to mitigate the inevitable inequalities? Nature itself has not made us perfectly equa

The most overlooked and underappreciated form of inequality is that of situation or place. Every individual human being is necessarily born and raised in a particular time, place and situation—and not in any of the others. These differences of situation are not neutral or interchangeable—not remotely. Virtually any child born in modern America has a profound advantage from birth—at least compared to the opportunities of a child born in a developing-world slum, or at any