The difficult thing about a meritocracy—or what we think is a meritocracy—is that we believe billionaires deserve it and that we should idolize them. Our idolatry of innovators blinds the winners to the structural advantages and luck they benefited from. And it fools us into thinking we are just a few lucky breaks from joining them. Sixty percent of Americans believe the economic system unfairly favors the wealthy25—but, as John Oliver points out, we tolerate this, because we think, “I can clearly see this game is rigged, which is what will make it so sweet when I win this thing.”26 Then we
...more
