Frank says his research ideas often come from his own experience, and his work on luck is no exception. His latest book, Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, argues that the role of luck in life, and specifically in economic success, is not as widely appreciated as it should be. The book claims that if the prosperous were more cognizant of luck’s role in their success they would be more supportive of government efforts to spread opportunity, and of the higher taxes they’d have to pay as a result. [...]
So, even if luck counts for only 1 percent, you’re going to see the winners most of the time won’t be the most talented people. Most of the time they’ll be among the luckiest of all the contestants. Let luck count for more than 1 percent, and it’s very easy to construct narratives where it matters enormously more. [...]
Choosing your parents, what genes you get, what kind of upbringing you’re going to get, and the country where they live is the hugest dimension of all the chance events that effect outcomes in your life. You can’t affect any of those, but we can affect those. We can make the investments that make our environment one that if you work hard and have some talent you’ve got a reasonable chance to succeed, at least on a decent scale, unlike Somalia where no matter how hard you work and how talented you are you’re not ever going to get anywhere. We could affect that outcome. We can’t do it as an individual, but collectively we could affect that outcome.
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