Multiple things here. I don&#x27;t think such statements are terribly helpful, as they&#x27;ll won&#x27;t persuade Bernie&#x27;s fans: some believe in fairness as &quot;just desserts&quot; while others believe in fairness as equality (usually a mix of equality of opportunity and equality of outcome).<p>Note, however, that&#x27;s why Bernie is careful to use multiple messages: a more equalitarian message for some, &quot;we aren&#x27;t getting just desserts, because the system is rigged&quot; for others -- a statement that happens to resonate with Charles Koch (often a negative focal point of Bernie&#x27;s campaign), <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;opinions&#x2F;charles-koch-this-is-the-one-issue-where-bernie-sanders-is-right&#x2F;2016&#x2F;02&#x2F;18&#x2F;cdd2c228-d5c1-11e5-be55-2cc3c1e4b76b_story.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;opinions&#x2F;charles-koch-this-is...</a><p>It does seem to work, as Sanders captures some voters that consider liberty as an important moral consideration (perhaps he&#x27;s the straw that broke the back of Rand Paul&#x27;s campaign?): <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;righteousmind.com&#x2F;presidentialprimaries&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;righteousmind.com&#x2F;presidentialprimaries&#x2F;</a>, surprisingly (or not so surprisingly, as most agree that his legislative program will fail, yet his views on other issues are more liberty-friendly than HRC&#x27;s).<p>It&#x27;s not clear if the author directly addresses Bernie&#x27;s (and Charles Koch&#x27;s point): corporate welfare does exist and not everyone amongst the wealthiest is technical entrepreneur; individual hard work won&#x27;t end subsidies for energy-extraction and farming industries, nor will it improve the criminal justice system. The author focuses on how the &quot;rigging&quot; affected by existing wealth is something one can outcome (yet, a male protestant could overcome a non-noble birth in 18th century England: it doesn&#x27;t automatically follow that there was no merit in newly formed US abolishing titles of nobility at independence.)  A more fruitful approach would be to make the case that Bernie&#x27;s policies would A) significantly increase regulatory capture B) relative to other candidates, fail to improve ability of the audience (and who is the audience for the article?) to get ahead by virtue of hard work, thrift, and through existing products thereof.<p>On the other hand, there&#x27;s something to be said about T.S. Elliot&#x27;s observation that if were indeed to have [what most believed to be] a meritocracy, the the well off would have much less &quot;noblesse privilege&quot;, attributing others misfortunes to personal moral failure. Yet people aren&#x27;t blank slates: presently the markets tend to reward personality traits such as intelligence, conscientiousness, empathy, and (at least outside of our own field!) extraversion; while none of those traits are wholly innate and immutable, one usually isn&#x27;t at liberty to make themselves as arbitrarily smart&#x2F;personable&#x2F;hard-working (yet, I suspect this knowledge wouldn&#x27;t alter people&#x27;s existing views in regards to whether or not a theoretical meritocracy would be fair or desirable..)<p>(For the record, I am not a fan of many of Sander&#x27;s policy proposals -- despite being less repelled by him than by other candidates likely to make it to the general election -- for reasons that are pointless to go in to here, but if I didn&#x27;t already hold that opinion, the article wouldn&#x27;t change change my mind.)