In one of the courses, two readings were paired together--an essay by John Rawls (one of the earlier essays prior to the publication of his magnum opus) and Robert Nozick's counterargument. Years of doing math and science hadn't prepared me for this. Math and science seemed way easier compared to figuring out my own public policy prescriptions post-Rawls and post-Nozick. And then there was another essay--by Isiah Berlin on thinking about liberty in two ways.
Over the years, I have found that the ideas from these three, more than anything else, complicate my personal take on any of the pressing public policy issues of the day.
Income inequality is one of the most contemporary urgent issues. In the old days, before wandering around in graduate school, I would have flatly stated that income inequality is awful. Now, I have to wear Rawls' "veil of ignorance" and think about Berlin's "postive and negative freedom" while dealing with Nozick's libertarianism. The result: nothing is ever easy anymore. Nor am I stupid enough to echo the words and sentiments of a former president who proudly claimed that he did not do nuance!
Even while sorting these out through those philosophical filters, there is Warren Buffett with his "ovarian lottery," which is what Michael Lewis also seems to point out:
Don't be deceived by life's outcomes. Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that you have had success, you have also had luck. And with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.Keep all those in mind as you watch Jon Stewart talk with Edward Conard, a former managing director of Bain Capital before he retired when he was about fifty years old.
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