BELIEF IN A JUST WORLD AND REDISTRIBUTIVE POLITICS*
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BELIEF IN A JUST WORLD AND REDISTRIBUTIVE
POLITICS*
ROLAND BE ´ NABOU AND JEAN TIROLE
International surveys reveal wide differences between the views held in
different countries concerning the causes of wealth or poverty and the extent to
which people are responsible for their own fate. At the same time, social ethnographies
and experiments by psychologists demonstrate individuals’ recurrent
struggle with cognitive dissonance as they seek to maintain, and pass on to their
children, a view of the world where effort ultimately pays off and everyone gets
their just desserts. This paper offers a model that helps explain i) why most people
feel such a need to believe in a “just world”; ii) why this need, and therefore the
prevalence of the belief, varies considerably across countries; iii) the implications
of this phenomenon for international differences in political ideology, levels of
redistribution, labor supply, aggregate income, and popular perceptions of the
poor. More generally, the paper develops a theory of collective beliefs and motivated
cognitions, including those concerning “money” (consumption) and happiness,
as well as religion.
“Individuals have a need to believe that they live in a world where people
generally get what they deserve.” The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental
Delusion [Lerner 1982].
INTRODUCTION
International surveys reveal striking differences between the
views held in different countries concerning the causes of wealth
and poverty, the extent to which individuals are responsible for
their own fate, and the long-run rewards to personal effort. American
“exceptionalism,” as manifested by the widely held belief in
the American Dream, is but the most striking example of this
phenomenon. At the same time, ethnographic studies of the working
and middle classes reveal that people do not come to these
views as dispassionate statisticians. On the contrary, they con-
* We are grateful for helpful remarks and suggestions to Samuel Bowles,
Edward Glaeser, Robert Lane, and George Loewenstein, as well as to seminar and
conference participants at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Institute
for Advanced Study, the University of California-Berkeley, Universita` Bocconi,
Columbia University, the De´partement et Laboratoire D’Economie Applique
´e in Paris, the European University Institute, Georgetown University, Harvard
University, Johns Hopkins University, Mannheim University, the
University of Miami, New York University, Universita` di Pisa, Princeton University,
Stanford University, the Universite´ de Toulouse, and University College
London. Be´nabou gratefully acknowledges support from the John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation and the National Science Foundation (SES-0424015),
as well as the hospitality of the Institute for Advanced Study during the academic
year 2002–2003.
© 2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
The Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2006
699
stantly struggle with the cognitive dissonance required to maintain
and pass on to their children the view that hard work and
good deeds will ultimately bring a better life, that crime does not
pay, etc., in spite of signals that life may not always be that fair.
Psychologists have similarly documented the fact that most individuals
feel a strong need to believe that they live in a world that
is just, in the sense that people generally get what they deserve,
and deserve what they get. When confronted with data that
conflicts with this view they try to ignore, reinterpret, distort, or
forget it—for instance, by finding imaginary merits to the recipients
of fortuitous rewards, or assigning blame to innocent
victims.
This paper proposes a theory of why people may feel such a
need to believe in a just world; of why this need, and therefore the
prevalence of the belief, may vary considerably across countries;
and of its implications for redistributive policies and the stigma
borne by the poor.
The basic model works as follows. Because of imperfect willpower,
people continually strive to motivate themselves (or their
children) toward effort, educational investment, perseverance in
the face of adversity and away from the slippery slope of idleness,
welfare dependency, drugs, etc. In such circumstances, maintaining
somewhat rosy beliefs about the fact that everyone
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