TwilightoftheElites_AmericaAfterMeritocr.epub

To my mom and dad, who taught me how to see the world. Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Chapter One THE NAKED EMPERORS Chapter Two MERITOCRACY AND ITS DISCONTENTS Chapter Three MORAL HAZARDS Chapter Four WHO KNOWS? Chapter Five WINNERS Chapter Six OUT OF TOUCH Chapter Seven REFORMATION Acknowledgments Notes Selected Bibliography About the Author But the core experience of the last decade isn’t just political dysfunction. It’s something much deeper and more existentially disruptive: the near total failure of each pillar institution of our society. The financial crisis and the grinding, prolonged economic immiseration it has precipitated are just the most recent instances of elite failure, the latest in an uninterrupted cascade of corruption and incompetence. If that sounds excessively bleak, take a moment to consider America’s trajectory over the first decade of the twenty-first century. The Supreme Court—an institution that embodies an ideal of pure, dispassionate, elite cogitation—handed the presidency to the favored choice of a slim, five-person majority in a ruling whose legal logic was so tortured......