The thesis of Outliers appears to be that individual success is heavily dependent on social conditions, rather than just innate brilliance.
What is interesting to me though is what Brooks claims as an obvious political conclusion from this argument. Gladwell may also claim it, it isn't mentioned in the review.
Brooks says
Gladwell’s social determinism is a useful corrective to the Homo economicus view of human nature. It’s also pleasantly egalitarian. The less successful are not less worthy, they’re just less lucky.My emphasis.
I'm not sure how Gladwell's theory affects this. Would Brooks have us believe that although you are not to be held responsible for your upbringing, the genes you have been arbitrarily endowed with are key indicators of your moral worth and how much renumeration you ought to receive? This seems a logical consequence of his statement. I think variants of this intuition are very common, not just in public but in the merit-based distributional philosophies of David Hume or, some of the time, David Miller. But is it a reasonable one?
Perhaps if I said "ceterus paribus, smart, hard-working people ought to earn a bit more money than lazy people".
I think that this would be a less controversial thing to say in public, but it is essentially the same principle.
The question I am driving at is 'Do you think that we can justly claim credit for any aspects of our character?". The (hopefully) subtle question-begging I engaged in two paragraphs ago should give some hint as to what I think is the correct answer. I'm also interested in the political ramifications of that answer to that question; I can think of some widely varying possibilities.