The Intellectual Essay
How do we design a fair economy?" On paper, the answer seems simple: equality. But its implementation is a migraine. To answer the question, our seminar platform has featured Nobel Prize economists like Michael Spence and TIME100 CEOs like Skye Perryman, and we've scrutinized philosophical texts from Hammurabi's diorite-inscribed eye-for-an-eye code to Locke's natural rights, which our Constitution was built upon. But the most thought-provoking solution I've read is from a thought experiment in Rawls' egalitarian masterpiece, A Theory of Justice.
To understand Rawls' Veil of Ignorance, imagine you're a floating, soon-to-be-born consciousness with the power to organize society to your liking. What rules would you install, not knowing if you'll be born into generational wealth or a warzone? Rawls argues for justice as fairness: we must establish policies that give the most unfortunate people an equal shot at good living. It makes sense, but economically, the logistics are nuts. For example, would it be unjust to pay naturally-unproductive workers equal to their productive counterparts, or would cutting their wages be justice for their highly-productive coworkers?
That dilemma perplexed my seminar members. So, seeking perspective, we interviewed Eugene Caruso, a behavioral scientist and UCLA professor, for my Socratic Exchange seminars. His 2007 paper, The Bias Blind Spot, parallels Rawls: people struggle to evaluate workplace injustice impartially when their own position is at stake. That summer, we discussed how self-interest shapes moral and economic judgments, and by the end, we concluded that just systems require structures that compensate for human bias, giving disadvantaged individuals a genuine chance to succeed.
Rawls' theory is bigger than just money, but Caruso's generosity in talking with us mushroomed my understanding of economics and philosophy. That was big. Studying at UCLA, I want to continue learning from professors like Caruso and philosophers like Rawls to discover ways to make our economy fairer for everyone, especially the unlucky ones.
What this one does
He intellectualized a topic most people would only ever talk about. A question about fairness took him to Rawls, then to a working economist who was generous enough to answer back. Where most students would have left it as a good conversation, he wrote the experience down, and wrote it well.
The essay is the student’s own writing, printed here unchanged.
If you want somebody reading your student’s file with you this year, that is the work we do.