America is built on the promise that those who work hard will achieve great success. But, what happens to those who don’t win in this 21st century economy? We explore this question and more with authors Fran Lebowitz, Daniel Markovits, Barbara Ehrenreich, and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw.
Moderated by The New Republic contributing editor, Sarah Leonard.
A new book by Daniel Markovits traces the rise of the meritocracy - a system in which those who get high grades and work around the clock can rise to positions of great power and earn a lot of money. This might sound sensible: surely jobs should go to the most qualified people. But what happens to the people who don’t win big in this new economy? Markovits argues that the new elite is fueling inequality, widening the gap between rich and poor, locking a new class system into place - and getting burned out itself in the process.
Reading Politics, uses Markovits' new book The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite - out in September 2019 - to light a conversation on the theory and how to move our society back from the brink of irreversible systemic inequality.
Panelists:
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, is a leading authority on Civil Rights, Black feminist legal theory, Critical Race Theory, and race, racism and the law. Crenshaw’s groundbreaking work on “Intersectionality” has traveled globally and was influential in the drafting of the equality clause in the South African Constitution. Crenshaw is the co-founder and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum, a gender and racial justice legal think tank, and the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School.
Barbara Ehrenreich is an American author and political activist. She is a widely read and award-winning columnist and essayist, and author of 21 books. Ehrenreich is perhaps best known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.
Fran Lebowitz is an American author, public speaker, and occasional actor. Lebowitz is known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York City sensibilities.
Daniel Markovits works in the philosophical foundations of private law, moral and political philosophy, and behavioral economics. He publishes in a range of disciplines, including in Science, The American Economic Review, and The Yale Law Journal.
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