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"This short but provocative volume… is a fitting testimony to the author's extraordinary, though tragically brief, career as a constitutional scholar, lawyer and teacher. In just a hundred and a half literate pages, we are treated to vintage Bickel insight into every major political issue of the decade, from the civil rights movement, to the Warren Court, through the frenetic university upheavals, and-inevitably-to Watergate…. A tapestry woven by a master of subtle color and texture."-Alan M. Dershowitz, New York Times Book Review"Presents the core of [Bickel's] legal and political philosophy…. In the five essays that compose this volume Bickel explores the relationship between morality and law, examining the role of the Constitution and Supreme Court in our political process, the nature of citizenship, the First Amendment, civil disobedience, and the moral authority of the intellectual…. All will be stimulated by Bickel's thoughtful message." -Perspective"[Bickel] wrote with astonishing clarity. It takes no legal training to understand his thinking about the law. Nor does it take a willingness to agree with him. All that's required of the reader of this important 'little' book is a concern that rivals Bickel's about the future of American society." -Newsweek"An illuminating, often a moving book, with all of Professor Bickel's rare ability to bring law to life in vivid words."-Anthony LewisAlexander M. Bickel, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, taught at Yale from 1956 until his death in 1974

Starting with a brief review of why all post‐industrial societies tend to be inegalitarian, this paper develops two main themes: (1) how the idea that people are individually responsible for their own fates reduces poverty but impedes redistribution, and (2) how both the loose ties of individuals to their societies and the selective nature of their empathy and pity for others reduces compassion for the poor, making redistribution unlikely. The first theme is elaborated through psychological research on dispositional versus circumstantial attributions, showing their effects on the widely shared belief in a just world and more generally on the prevailing theory of the justice of deserts. The attribution‐affect‐action model is used to show how dispositional attributes evoke either anger or pity for victims and, if anger, then unwillingness to help. The development of the second theme shows how people divorce their own fates from those of their nations, how the basic tendency to favor the familiar and similar limits support for redistribution, how converting concern regarding deprivations of the self to concern for (fraternal) deprivation of people like the self excludes those who most need help, how envy fails to lead to redistribution, and finally, how people's ideas of the privileged and the disadvantaged reflect market values and often mark the poor and the different as overprivileged.

Starting with a brief review of why all postindustrial societies tend to be inegalitarian, this paper develops two main themes: (1) how the idea that people are individually responsible for their own fates reduces poverty but impedes redistribution, & (2) how both the loose ties of individuals to their societies & the selective nature of their empathy & pity for others reduces compassion for the poor, making redistribution unlikely. The first theme is elaborated through psychological research on dispositional vs circumstantial attributions, showing their effects on the widely shared belief in a just world & more generally on the prevailing theory of the justice of deserts. The attribution-affect-action model is used to show how dispositional attributions evoke either anger or pity for victims &, if anger, then unwillingness to help. The development of the second theme shows how people divorce their own fates from those of their nations, how the basic tendency to favor the familiar & similar limits support for redistribution, how converting concern regarding deprivations of the self to concern for (fraternal) deprivation of people like the self excludes those who most need help, how envy fails to lead to redistribution, & finally, how people's ideas of the privileged & the disadvantaged reflect market values & often mark the poor & the different as overprivileged. 1 Table, 90 References. Adapted from the source document.

If the obstacles to human development lie in the paucity of resources, in insuperable technical barriers, the task would be hopeless. We know instead that it is too often a lack of political commitment, not of resources, that is the ultimate cause of human neglect. United Nations, Human Development Report, 1991

Most studies show that above a minimal level, income is irrelevant to one's sense of well-being, but companionship & social support increase well-being. Since shopping & consumption are increasingly solitary activities, & watching TV is not genuinely sociable, the increased time devoted to these activities may be responsible for the rising levels of depression, dysphoria, & distrust experienced since the mid-1960s. Advanced societies would be better off if they maximized friendship rather than the getting & spending of wealth. Adapted from the source document.