Robert Frank on the role of luck in success, the myth of meritocracy, and implications for youth development

On this episode of the Global Possibility Network (GPN) Podcast, Robert (Bob) Frank, the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management Emeritus at Cornell, joins host Andrew Babson to talk about his recent work on the role of luck in success, and its implications for policy, economics, and society, especially youth.

The episode was inspired by Andrew's admiration for Bob's 2017 book, Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy (Princeton UP), which he had assigned for his courses at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Frank's prominence as a scholar and public intellectual, and the timeliness of themes such as widening wealth and mobility gaps in the United States, and the role of formal schooling in perpetuating the myth of meritocracy, made the book an easy choice to assign. It provoked vigorous classroom debates that influenced Andrew's questions to Bob in this podcast; and the resulting dialogue provides rhetorical ammunition to break through longstanding political and cultural resistance to building a fairer and more just society in the United States.

Babson and Frank address questions such as:

• What might be the political and cultural effects of more public admission by those considered "successful" (economically or not) that their station in life has required some simple good fortune, beyond their own intentions or control?

• Stubborn American myths of glorious individual achievement persist, carrying with them assumptions about deservingness, responsibility, and even the existence of free will itself. Are younger Americans accepting or rejecting this cultural inheritance?

• Can comparative international examples of appreciating the role of sheer chance in life outcomes lead to more humane social welfare policymaking, a new New Deal, paid by modest changes to federal tax law, addressing educational and wealth gaps and structural discrimination?

Finally, they discuss how the myth of meritocracy might affect youth possibility development. Youth don't want to give up agency over their own futures, but they also don't want to get stuck criticizing themselves for struggles caused by factors out of their control. Even having this discussion, however, empowers youth as they build their own transitions to adulthood.

The podcast video can be found here on the GPN's YouTube page.

The Global Possibility Network (GPN) Podcast is an interview-based quarterly podcast hosted by its Co-Founder and Associate Director, Andrew Babson. The GPN Podcast invites people from all walks of life to share stories, expertise, and opinions about possibility development, the practice of imagining and realizing possibilities in one's life. Each episode should appeal to anyone committed to supporting their own or others' possibility development. Fore more about the GPN, visit gpnnetwork.org.

Producer: Jon Crescenzo

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