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Book Review: Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy by Robert H. Frank
What role does luck play in economic success? In Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, Robert H. Frank argues that the wealthy tend to underestimate the role that chance plays in acquiring status and money, and explores how this consequently discourages support of taxation. While this short read could draw upon other discussions of luck to bolster its key claims, this is a convincing and engagingly written work, writes Dan McArthur.
Consider the owner and founder of a successful business. Did they make it all on their own, through hard work, dedication and talent, or did luck play a role in their success? Hard work and talent might be needed to identify an untapped market or a revolutionary business model, but our businessperson still required luck of several kinds. They were lucky that another entrepreneur didn’t get there first, or that an established company was unable to muscle in on their business. However, they were also lucky to be born in an affluent society where they could be educated for free in publicly funded schools, and where governments have invested in the roads on which their products are transported and in a police force to prevent their wealth from being stolen.
In Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, Robert H. Frank argues that wealthy people fail to appreciate the central role that luck plays in their success, and are thus unwilling to support taxation to fund public infrastructure that benefits everyone. Frank is an economist at Cornell University and a columnist for the New York Times, and is well known for popularising the idea of the ‘winner-take-all society’.
...
Drawing on behavioural economics and psychology, Frank discusses some of the cognitive biases that lead successful people to fail to appreciate the role of luck in their success. It seems to be harder to delay gratification and self-motivate if you believe that luck, rather than effort, plays an important role in your life. But overlooking the role of luck makes successful people more hostile to paying taxes. For Frank, in the US at least, this unwillingness to support higher taxes is seriously damaging physical and social infrastructure, including the roads, railways and public education on which the entire population depends. This under-investment in public goods is harmful even to the most successful members of a society, because they also benefit from public goods. The analogy he uses is that it is better to drive a $150,000 Porsche on well-maintained roads than a $333,000 Ferrari on a road full of potholes.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2016/06/28/book-review-success-and-luck-good-fortune-and-the-myth-of-meritocracy-by-robert-h-frank/
Consider the owner and founder of a successful business. Did they make it all on their own, through hard work, dedication and talent, or did luck play a role in their success? Hard work and talent might be needed to identify an untapped market or a revolutionary business model, but our businessperson still required luck of several kinds. They were lucky that another entrepreneur didn’t get there first, or that an established company was unable to muscle in on their business. However, they were also lucky to be born in an affluent society where they could be educated for free in publicly funded schools, and where governments have invested in the roads on which their products are transported and in a police force to prevent their wealth from being stolen.
In Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, Robert H. Frank argues that wealthy people fail to appreciate the central role that luck plays in their success, and are thus unwilling to support taxation to fund public infrastructure that benefits everyone. Frank is an economist at Cornell University and a columnist for the New York Times, and is well known for popularising the idea of the ‘winner-take-all society’.
...
Drawing on behavioural economics and psychology, Frank discusses some of the cognitive biases that lead successful people to fail to appreciate the role of luck in their success. It seems to be harder to delay gratification and self-motivate if you believe that luck, rather than effort, plays an important role in your life. But overlooking the role of luck makes successful people more hostile to paying taxes. For Frank, in the US at least, this unwillingness to support higher taxes is seriously damaging physical and social infrastructure, including the roads, railways and public education on which the entire population depends. This under-investment in public goods is harmful even to the most successful members of a society, because they also benefit from public goods. The analogy he uses is that it is better to drive a $150,000 Porsche on well-maintained roads than a $333,000 Ferrari on a road full of potholes.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2016/06/28/book-review-success-and-luck-good-fortune-and-the-myth-of-meritocracy-by-robert-h-frank/
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