Putting Our Hopes in the Lotto

Today’s dominant ideology holds that economic incentive principles require us to reward the rich lavishly but to be very cautious about rewarding ordinary working people, lest we spoil the help. This is, of course, self-interested nonsense.

The economy is booming, mainly thanks to technological breakthroughs, and it would boom no less smartly if we had, say, enriched child care for all, decent basic wages and universal health insurance. But at a time when money equals power to a greater degree than any time in this century, a different sort of society would require a transformation of politics.

And as long as ordinary people spend more imagination on lottery tickets than on politics, this transformation will not come. Instead, 50 million hard-working, not-very-well-compensated souls will spend their scarce energy, imagination and money dreaming of a big win--just like Maria J. Grasso, a Boston nanny and immigrant from Chile, who just won $70 million (after taxes) in the Massachusetts Big Game. Instead of thinking about the gross inequities of this society, everyone identifies with lucky Maria. So people keep working their long hours for low pay--and spend even more of it on lottery tickets.

That’s what’s left of the American dream. No wonder our otherwise puritanical elites gratefully give lotteries a free moral pass.