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After a long time wherein economic growth, salary increases and equalization policies had guaranteed more widespread prosperity and a progressive reduction of inequalities, over the past thirty years is experiencing a turnaround. In France the issue of distribution of economic resources has an important place in the current public debate. François Dubet’s book Les places et les chances. Repenser la justice sociale presents and compares the two main conceptions of social justice: equality of position and equality of opportunity, and justifies the reasons that the first would be preferable to the second. The author addresses the issue in a didactic way: he analyzes separately the two criteria of social justice, reserving the same number of chapters to the description and analysis of the critical aspects of each. Dubet devotes the final chapter of the reasons for its preference. Despite the methodical approach the work seems more a pamphlet that a study or a research. The author fails to recognize the benefits (including cognitive) arising from the multiplicity of competing principles and reduces the plurality of criteria of social justice in a Manichaean struggle between opposing forces.