“Contrary to what many parents tell their children, talent and hard work are neither necessary nor sufficient for economic success.” The missing ingredient, he explained in an argument he would eventually expand upon in his new book Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, is luck.
After introducing Frank, Varney jumped right down the scholar’s throat, “Do you know how insulting that was, when I read that?” Varney asked him. “I came to America with nothing 35 years ago. I’ve made something of myself, I think through hard work, talent, and risk-taking, and you’re going to write in the New York Times that this is luck.”
Monday, at a book event at Ideas42, a behavioral-economics-focused think tank, Frank led off with this anecdote, and it’s understandable why: Varney’s reaction captures — albeit in a somewhat hysterical, made-for-cable-news way — the reaction many people have to the idea that luck, rather than hard work or merit, plays a big role in who rises to the top, who slides to or stays at the bottom, and who gets stalled in the middle. (As Frank couldn’t resist pointing out, Varney’s idea of “coming to America with nothing” left out the fact that, at the time he did, he had a degree from the London School of Economics — his was not the story of a battered émigré riding in steerage on a creaky transatlantic steamship.)
"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from
those soap commercials (RIP), “didn't you call this bullshit six years ago?"
Sigh. Yes I did, faithful readers. Yes I did:
I think the need to feel like an oppressed underdog who has succeeded against all odds is as American as apple pie. Nobody likes to admit "part of my success is due to economic and social conditions cemented long before I was even born"; we must be made to believe that Successful Person X was left to die in a dumpster, then pulled himself up by his own bootstraps and became a real rags to riches story. Nobody's happy simply to have been given the keys to the kingdom, they also hafta portray themselves as "victims."
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