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A batch of the best highlights from what Jophin's read, .
The most reliable means to a good life for ordinary people remains the presence of institutional incentives in the form of dependence on a big coalition that compels power-seeking politicians to govern for the people. Democracy, especially with little or no organized bloc voting, aligns incentives such that politicians can best serve their own self-interest, especially their interest in staying in office, by promoting the welfare of a large proportion of the people. That, we believe, is why most democracies are prosperous, stable, and secure places to live.
The Dictator's Handbook
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith
it is important to understand that __schools do more than reproduce capitalist inequalities; they also do ideological work to justify the existence of those same inequalities.__ Schools in the United States have played a key role in legitimating existing socioeconomic and racial inequalities, because our system of education is predicated on the idea that hard work and individual merit are the keys to overcoming any and all structural inequalities presented by society at large.
A Marxist Education
Wayne Au
But in life? Perhaps here different rules apply. You bet on a relationship, it fails; you go on to the next relationship, it fails too: and maybe what you lose is not two simple minus sums but the multiple of what you staked. That’s what it feels like, anyway. Life isn’t just addition and subtraction. There’s also the accumulation, the multiplication, of loss, of failure.
The Sense of an Ending
Julian Barnes
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