Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life

by Rory Sutherland

Everyone worries about declining social mobility, rising inequality and the hideous homogeneity of politicians, yet it is possible these have arisen from well-meaning attempts to make the world fairer. The quandary is that you can either create a fairer, more equitable society, with opportunities for all but where luck plays a significant role, or you can create a society which maintains the illusion of complete and non-random fairness, yet where opportunities are open to only a few – the problem is that when ‘the rules are the same for everyone’ the same boring bastards win every time. The idea that you should therefore try making your recruitment system less fair outrages people when I suggest it, but it is worth remembering that there is an inevitable trade-off between fairness and variety. By applying identical criteria to everyone in the name of fairness, you end up recruiting identical people.