"Certainly, the poverty, the discrimination, the episodic unemployment could not but strike an inquiring youngster: why did these exist, and what could we do about them"
About this Quote
Curiosity is doing double duty here: its the origin story of a public intellectual and a quiet indictment of a society that expects people to step around obvious suffering without asking why. Stiglitz frames poverty, discrimination, and unemployment as facts so blunt they "could not but strike" an attentive kid. That phrasing matters. It suggests these harms are not mysterious market outcomes but visible social arrangements, maintained by policy choices and political convenience. The real target isnt just inequality; its the normalization of inequality.
By listing "poverty" alongside "discrimination" and "episodic unemployment", Stiglitz also smuggles in an economist's critique of tidy narratives. Poverty isnt merely a matter of individual effort, discrimination isnt a cultural footnote, and unemployment isnt always a personal failure. "Episodic" hints at instability: the stop-start nature of work, the precarity that comes in waves, the way downturns and restructuring land on the same communities again and again. The trio reads like a diagnosis of systems, not sinners.
The question "what could we do about them" is the pivot from observation to agency, and its a rebuke to the technocratic pose that economics is value-neutral. Stiglitz, famously skeptical of market fundamentalism, is signaling that expertise should answer to moral urgency. The subtext: if a child can see these patterns, adults - especially leaders and economists - dont get to pretend theyre inevitable.
By listing "poverty" alongside "discrimination" and "episodic unemployment", Stiglitz also smuggles in an economist's critique of tidy narratives. Poverty isnt merely a matter of individual effort, discrimination isnt a cultural footnote, and unemployment isnt always a personal failure. "Episodic" hints at instability: the stop-start nature of work, the precarity that comes in waves, the way downturns and restructuring land on the same communities again and again. The trio reads like a diagnosis of systems, not sinners.
The question "what could we do about them" is the pivot from observation to agency, and its a rebuke to the technocratic pose that economics is value-neutral. Stiglitz, famously skeptical of market fundamentalism, is signaling that expertise should answer to moral urgency. The subtext: if a child can see these patterns, adults - especially leaders and economists - dont get to pretend theyre inevitable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|
More Quotes by Joseph
Add to List
