Who bears the burden of achieving equality, when bringing it about requires government action to benefit disadvantaged groups? Too often, elites, while furthering such noble goals, let that burden fall on others rather than bearing it themselves. Populist reactions, frequently violent toward the groups that the action intended to aid, often result. This lecture, after giving historical examples, argues that elites must be conscious of such populist backlashes. And it asserts that, rather than abandoning the goals, the elites must be visibly in the forefront of bearing the costs of achieving them.

Guido Calabresi is Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Sterling Emeritus Professor of Law at Yale University, where he served as Dean of the Law School from 1985 to 1994.

The lecture was delivered on 20 December 2016.