The article <a href="https://jacobin.com/2025/08/luck-capitalism-inequality-injustice-socialism/" author="Ben Burgis" source="Jacobin">Luck Shouldn’t Determine Our Fates</a> discusses a topic that has also been well-covered by Freddie deBoer in his book <i>The Cult of Smart</i>, namely that: modern, western society privileges intelligence above nearly everything else. I posit that our societies tend to privilege plunder and those who can do it without a twinge of conscience. Sociopaths, in other words. <bq>[Marxist analytic philosopher G. A.] Cohen calls his view <b>“luck-egalitarianism.”</b> He thinks <b>inequalities are objectionable when they’re outside of the control of whoever gets the short end of the stick.</b> The ideal society would eliminate inequalities that you can’t do anything to change.</bq> <bq>A society where the only way to achieve a middle-class lifestyle was to win a place in a warrior caste through trial by combat would be unfair to people who are physically smaller or weaker through no fault of their own. Similarly, <b>it’s unjust if the few escape routes out of the working class tend to be tied to unevenly distributed academic aptitudes.</b></bq> Or, perhaps even more perverse, if the only escape routes are tied neither to physical nor academic ability but to an ability to screw over other people, to be an asshole, to not only disregard principle but, if possible, to not ever have any in the first place. <img attachment="master_of_the_universe.webp" align="right" caption="Master of the universe">We live in a society where, if you don't already enjoy privilege, your only escape route is to provide some value to the already-wealthy and other elites, usually by providing them means by which they can increase their own personal wealth and power or by massaging their egos with sucking up, or otherwise validating their lifestyles and personal worldview as perfectly entitled masters of the universe. In this society, you either make do with much less---perhaps much less than you deserve relative to your societal value---or you burrow your nose in some elite ass to climb that ladder until you not only wouldn't even recognize yourself anymore, you would no longer even be capable of even thinking that any such introspection would be necessary or useful. Instead, the ultimate goal is to <i>become one of them</i>, preening and plundering, encouraging your own entourage of acolytes to burrow their noses <i>in your own privileged ass</i> in a glorious cycle. <bq><b>Any time we accept inequalities that the worse-off can do nothing about, we’ve therefore accepted a degree of injustice.</b></bq>