BUILDING OR DESTROYING ESCAPE ROUTES FROM DEPRIVATION

Angus Deaton, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2013) ("The Great Escape of this book is the story of mankind's escaping from deprivation and early death, of how people have managed their lives better, and led the way for others to follow." Id. at ix. "This book is about the endless dance between progress and inequality, about how progress creates inequality, and how inequality can sometimes be helpful--showing others the way, or providing incentives for catching up--and sometime unhelpful--when those who have escaped protect their positions by destroying the escape routes behind them. This is a story that has been told many time, but I want to tell it in a new way. [] Many books tell the story of wealth, and many others are about inequality. There are also many books that tell the story of health, and of how health and wealth go hand in hand, with inequalities in health mirroring inequalities in wealth. Here I tell both stories at once, taking the chance that professional demographers and historians will allow an economist to trespass into their lands, But the story of human wellbeing, of what makes life worth living, is not well served by looking at only one part of what is important. The great escape  does not respect the boundaries of academic disciplines." Id. at xiii-xiv. In thinking about the law, in preparing to teach my law classes, I often wonder whether the core legal issue or battle is between those who advocate rules, regulations, laws, and interpretation of such, that would built the escape routes and those that would destroy the escape routes for others. Often times Americans seem so much to possess a 'I've-got-mine,-you-get yours" character. We call it individualism, when in fact it is simply selfishness and greed.).