I am rating this book primarily on how I think I would feel about it, had I read the description properly and not read so many other books with the same sort of information. It's a good book - well written, logical, straight to the point, pragmatic, short and to the point. The author's main messages are clear, simple, and easy to implement.

All that said, within this genre, it's not particularly original, and it's really only tangentially related to the notion of meritocracy. It really is a book much like all the others written by economists and behavioural economists, that points out how we overestimate our own abilities and underplay the role of luck, how heuristics work most of the time but sometimes fail us, how our biases affect the narratives we tell ourselves about our own lives, others, and society, etc. I pre-ordered this book when I first saw it was going to be published because I haven't read a book specifically dedicated to the ludicrous notion of meritocracy, and I was interested in learning more about why people hold on to this idea despite it being such an obvious myth. This book is not about that, really; or rather perhaps it is more accurate to say that it focuses on mainly one aspect of the possible "why", relating mainly to some of the aforementioned cognitive errors that humans tend to make. I would still like to read a book that discusses meritocracy from a more macro-scale perspective, however, as the book doesn't really explain why the notion of meritocracy is so much more pervasive in societies like the United States but not so in countries that aren't really all that culturally different. What might the X factor be? That would be an interesting book for sure.

That said, if you haven't read books such as Invisible Gorilla, The Drunkards Walk, Predictably Irrational, Thinking, Fast and Slow or other pop psychology and behavioural economics books, you will get a lot out of this book, I think, and it's a quick and entertaining read. It would be thought provoking if you haven't been exposed to some of these concepts before, and it is more economically-oriented than the others I mentioned. It also has a very simple policy proposal that makes quite a lot of sense to restructure society in a way that might make it more equal, but I will leave that to readers to discover themselves.

2nd read:
This is easily a must-read book. I was totally unfamiliar with Sally Kohn’s work, but she has a great head on her shoulders. In short, Sally wanted to understand why we hate other groups of people, and it mainly started with online trolls and political polarization. Although I knew a lot of what she talks about in this book, it was great reading about her going on this journey, and I did learn about a few studies I hadn’t heard of before.

This book stretches far beyond polarization and touches on genocides and other atrocities. Sally interviews online trolls and gets interesting answers as to why they attack her. She also dives into racial biases, and although I’ve read about this topic extensively, I have never seen a white person become so introspective about the topic. It wasn’t the “I’m a terrible white person”, stuff either. She catches her thoughts and lays them out there, and if more people did that, this world would be a much better place.

1st read:
There are a handful of books that I’ve read where I think, “Literally everyone needs to read this book to better understand life and the world,” and this book from Robert Frank is one of them. I read this book for the first time about a year ago and decided to read it again because Robert is coming on my podcast, and I binged it in about a day. This was one of the first books that I read that really broke down the myth of meritocracy and how luck plays a role in success, and the second time reading it, I gained even more from the experience. This time, I was able to better understand some of Robert’s suggestions and quotes from others about how we balance success and luck while also making this world a little bit better for everyone.

By reading this book, you have an understanding of why hard work and developing skills are both important, but you only have so much control over your outcomes. This allows us to be humble and grateful for our successes while also pushing forward. Many of the lessons from this book are ones I teach my son so he practices gratitude and humility while also having a strong work ethic. But why do so many people neglect to credit luck in their success? Frank points to some evolutionary theories that may explain why these are adaptive behaviors, but although adaptive, it doesn’t mean we can’t work on it.

During the first first 70% of the book, the author discusses the essential role of luck in our lives. He puts words to some ways of thinking about the world that I relate to but have trouble articulating.

The last 30% of the book involves the author describing his ideal methods of taxation (progressive consumption tax and estate tax).

I really enjoyed both parts of the book, but they do seem like they should have been separate books. I'd recommend the first half to people who don't understand my skepticism toward concepts like meritocracies, self-made persons, and "you can make it if you try". I'd recommend he second half of the book to people who are looking for an interesting economic argument that pairs well with Frank's view of the world (which I think I largely share).

Nicely written, thought provoking, thoughtful, an argument for the importance of luck and the reasons (some good and adaptive and others problematic) that the more successful we are the more we undervalue its importance. Robert Frank does not argue that the successful are not talented or hard working, just that these are not enough. In the course of this argument he extensively reprises some of his major previous themes, including the winner take all economy (which magnifies the importance of and consequences of luck) and the Darwin economy (in which people want to consumer positional goods). Frank does not treat his policy recommendation to the same degree of critical scrutiny or analysis of tradeoffs that he does other aspects of his argument.

The first part was fascinating. The second part was an interesting, but will never happen.

Back in 2007, when I was finishing my Ph.D., I used to have discussions with some of my fellow post-graduates about successful academic or industrial careers. We were divided into two camps, one backing brilliance (both scientifically as socially) and hard work as the single necessary precondition, another one stating that luck was the decisive factor. I was in the latter camp. I wish I had known this book back then, as it gives a statistical indication that would have swayed my colleagues.

The book is delightfully short, taking as least space and time as possible to make its point. Even then, I think the author could have stripped some repetition, but all in all a decent job.

A pleasant surprise for me was that the author managed to open my eyes to an alternative tax system, based on consumption rather than on income. I had considered such systems very briefly based on politicians one-liners, but now I have the feeling I understand the intended effects. Obviously, he set out to do that from the outset. It goes to show that I had opened this book purely on the merit of its title, rather than on an in depth knowledge of the topic at hand.

Even though his path to the epiphany about the importance of luck, which he mentions a couple of times, was not necessary for me, I consider it a very worthy read that I would recommend to anyone willing to question the standard way our governments tax in the beginning of the 21st century.

This is a quick and interesting read. Some of the stuff is intuitive and easy to guess, but he shares a lot of psych studies that provide a fascinating perspective on human nature.

Basically, people tend to downplay the role of luck in their own success. The more they do not recognize luck as part of the reason for their success, the more likely they are to want/fight for more money for themselves and the less likely they are to do things for others or for the good of the group. But as Frank shows, many hardworking and smart people are never successful and luck plays a role in EVERYONE's success.

He makes a convincing case that understanding that one simple principle could drastically change our society as a whole...and for the better!