Inequality and a decline in social mobility is a concern of many today. In the Financial Times of December 19, Miranda Green wrote about Sanna Marin, the new 34-year old prime minister of Finland.1 Ms. Marin had been a shop assistant and was the first in her family to go to university. But Ms. Green had trouble coming up with a proper phrase or word to describe Ms. Marin’s rise to the prime minister’s job.
In a letter to the Financial Times that was published on December 23,2 I suggested this:
“In celebrating the new 34-year prime minister of Finland and worrying about the health of the American dream, Miranda Green canvasses alternatives for the phrase ‘social mobility,’ which smacks too much of policy wonkery.
One option is the phrase they use in New Zealand and Australia: a ‘fair go.’ That describes what people are looking for. They don’t want something given to them, but they don’t think jobs, college admissions and so on should be given out based on money or who you know, either.
People just want a fair chance, a ‘fair go.’”
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1 Miranda Green, “Long Live the Finnish dream of social mobility,” Financial Times, December 19, 2019.
2 “Antipodean ‘fair go’ enables social mobility,” Financial Times, December 23, 2019.
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