What's luck got to do with it? : how smarter government can rescue the American dream

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What's luck got to do with it? : how smarter government can rescue the American dream

Edward D. Kleinbard

Oxford University Press, c2021

  • : hardback

Available at  / 1 libraries

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Includes index

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Description

The American dream of equal opportunity is in peril. America's economic inequality is shocking, poverty threatens to become a heritable condition, and our healthcare system is crumbling despite ever increasing costs. In this thought-provoking book, Edward D. Kleinbard demonstrates how the failure to acknowledge the force of brute luck in our material lives exacerbates these crises — leading to warped policy choices that impede genuine equality of opportunity for many Americans. What's Luck Got to Do with It? combines insights from economics, philosophy, and social psychology to argue for government's proper role in addressing the inequity of brute luck. Kleinbard shows how well-designed public investment can blunt the worst effects of existential bad luck that private insurance cannot reach and mitigate inequality by sharing the costs across the entire risk pool, which is to say, all of us. The benefits, as Kleinbard shares in a wealth of data, are economic as well as social — a more inclusive economy, higher national income, and greater life satisfaction for millions of Americans. Like it or not, our lives and opportunities are determined largely by luck. Kleinbard shows that while we can't undo every instance of misfortune, we can offer a path to not just a fairer America, but greater economic growth, more broadly shared.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Bad Luck Changes Everything PART 1: AN OVERVIEW OF MY ARGUMENT 1. Buffeted by the Winds of Fortune 2 The Denial of Luck PART 2: EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY BETRAYED 3. Born on Third Base DL Or Out on the Street? 4. It's Better to Be Lucky Than Smart 5. Education Is the Engine of Opportunity PART 3: INSURANCE TO THE RESCUE 6. Insurance as Product 7. Insurance as Metaphor 8. The Social Mortgage PART 4: OPPORTUNITY RESTORED 9. From Insurance Theory to Political Reality 10. Healthcare and Medicare for All 11. Epilogue: Progressive Policies, Progressive Paradigms Notes Index

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