Joseph Fishkin on ‘Bottlenecks’ and Democracy

“Equal opportunity” is a powerful and popular idea. But in both theory and practice, actually equalizing opportunity may not always be the right goal. For example, a parent raising a child makes a million decisions large and small that will impact that child’s opportunities. Truly equalizing opportunity might mean standardizing many parental decisions, stripping parents of their agency and personality. Is that an ideal worth striving for? This conversation explores the idea of opportunity pluralism—the view that instead of aiming for perfectly equal opportunities, we should focus on expanding the range of paths through which people can thrive—an approach that could help disrupt the cycle in which limited options for most people keep power concentrated in the hands of a few.

Joseph Fishkin is a professor of law at UCLA. His book, Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity, argues that society should focus less on equalizing opportunity and more on removing unnecessary obstacles to human flourishing. His latest book, The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy, traces the history of a once-robust thread of political thought: that constitutional democracy is incompatible with the concentration of economic power. He discusses his work on “bottlenecks” and democracy with host Steven Durlauf.