More than half of the people who took last week’s Monster opinion poll believe cosmetic surgery could advance their career. Surveys have confirmed that beauty confers a social advantage that translates into unearned income. Workers have started to file lawsuits to protect themselves from appearance-based discrimination, but some economists are arguing that survival of the prettiest is an attribute of a free society. In other words, it’s human to make distinctions and humiliate others in the process of forming hierarchies: if the free citizen wants to redistribute income from skill and experience to the sexually desirable, so be it. Perhaps the economists might reconsider their position when people start killing for plastic surgery money.