The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?

Sandel communicates the key concept that in our modern meritocracy, we (both the liberal and conservative mainstreams) have tightly linked personal professional/academic success to moral value and social status, which leaves the “losers” in this system not only with less money and lower status, but also with the societal judgment that their fate is their fault alone, a personal failure. Sandel spends the first half of the book in philosophical territory (which he is most comfortable with), but I found it to be of somewhat limited value. It was strange to me how much he focused on Western religious tradition and philosophy, as if it were the source of the concept of meritocracy, when it seems obvious to me that global economic forces are creating versions of meritocratic systems in places like China. Once Sandel transitions from philosophy to economics and politics, I became more engaged. However, he does not provide new insights into how people are behaving within meritocracy, referencing other’s papers but not interrogating them deeply. For example, he stereotypes Trump supporters/populists as non-college whites who have lost out economically. But the strongest Trump supporters are non-professional economically successful whites. I wish he had addressed this demographic segment specifically, because I think they (successful small business owners) exist at the intersection of “winning” the meritocracy game, yet failing to reap the social status rewards that come with academic/professional credentials. Sandel also only briefly addresses the racism and related status competition that I believe is a powerful engine for white resentment in the US. Other books have been written on this topic, but I was hoping this book would be a synthesis of these two major drivers of social status—meritocratic success and racial privilege. These are my own hopes/expectations, rather than Sandel’s goal, so my disappointment in this gap is somewhat of my own making. I did find the book engaging, and with a number of very valuable insights. His framing of meritocracy in the context of Hayek and Rawls was very helpful to my understanding. In Sandel’s telling, both Hayek and Rawls view economic success and moral desert as independent variables—our market system should not be a judge of one’s moral value to society. In Hayek’s “free-market liberalism,” economic success is strictly a measure how well individuals operate in the market system, which should be held separate from societal merit. However, redistribution of these gains on a basis of merit would require government coercion and is therefore unacceptable. In Rawls’s “egalitarian liberalism,” the disconnect between economic success and merit/justice requires redistribution of the economic gains on a basis of societal merit, according to “the difference principle,” where the gains that accrue to the talented and lucky are redistributed to the less talented/lucky. Meritocracy differs from these two worldviews in that it collapses together economic/professional success with moral desert. Mankiw describes the idealized version of meritocracy: since “each person’s income reflects the value of what he contributed to society’s production of goods and services, one might easily conclude that, under these idealized conditions, each person receives his just deserts.” The fundamental problem of meritocracy, in my interpretation of Sandel, is that he, like Hayek/Rawls/Knight, recognizes that economic market success is fundamentally a function of luck: talent, culture, and even the capacity for hard work are all things that are not truly under our control; yet in our society, this success is interpreted as just and a measure of a person’s moral value and what they deserve—so the losers in this system are implicitly unworthy members of society. Sandel spends much of the book identifying how we attempt to perfect meritocracy, yet our idealized version of meritocracy is fundamentally flawed. He describes our society’s outsized focus on educational attainment as harshly judging those who do not flourish in that system, torturing the competitors in the race, and driving the winning parents to replicate their meritocratic advantages for their children. Meritocracy has replaced aristocracy. But, according to Sandel, instead of the recognition that the aristocrat’s fortunes are a function of the luck of their birth, and not a judgment of their moral worth, in a meritocracy, one’s station is explicitly a judge of one’s worth. One’s success or failure is not about luck, but a manifestation of one’s value as a human. Sandel’s final chapter, “Recognizing Work,” is his (pretty light) policy solutions chapter. He highlights policies by others including subsidizing lower-income work (kind of like an expanded EITC, though he doesn’t say this) and replacing income taxes with a tax on financial transactions. He makes no mention of a Universal Basic Income, making the assumption (in my reading) that market-paid work is the important work to reward (as opposed to unpaid elder or child care, of which he makes to mention). I don’t disagree with the policies he mentions, but “Recognizing Work” seems to me a failure to really address the problems of meritocracy or provide a vision for how our society should adapt its culture. If you’re interested in these topics, the book is definitely worth a read. I hope his next book will be the one I really want, a deeper meditation on relative social status in America and its role as a key political driver.

Reading a Michael Sandel opinion piece in the Times, impressed and ordered his new release. Unfortunately there is not much of interest in the piece if you have followed the perverse twist the acceptance of ‘Free Market’ ideology has laid on Western societies he discusses, and especially America’s, since the days of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher; the neoliberal philosophy they accepted (and its spread to the Liberal establishment and its political processes mentioned), resulting in creating a new Gilded Age matching or surpassing the income inequalities and monopolistic corporate power of the 1920’s and now a rising ‘threat’ of populism; all covered well in recent years by a plethora of other authors. What Sandel’s publicist’s promise is “The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good.” Unfortunately little follows from that. Many suggestions are listed having merit, but they all require govermental action from a system that seems to be captured by the same power structures that brought us populism and by inference President Trump and what follows. Joe Biden earns one mention when in 1987, during his first presidential campaign, a voter pressed him to say what law school he attended and where he placed in the class. “Fact-checking found that Biden’s reply was replete with exaggeration.”(loc. 1473) He recognizes the stresses that have been created at stagnating income levels for the last 40 years, but finds Americans tend to accept inequality, but more and more bridle at “what economic roles are worthy of honor and recognition.” He opens the topic of “renewing the dignity of work,” and goes on to raise the issue of ‘the common good,’ and how we are all in this together. Interesting if all this comes as an unknown; in his favor Sandel recognizes that our plutocratic class seem to be those of the ‘unknowing.’ Salvation may come when that finally changes? * Not an interesting work, if already booked up. 3 stars *An interesting article (11/28/20) NYTimes headed “The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism.” ‘Socialist-minded millennial heirs are trying to live their values by getting rid of their money;’ mentions organizations such as Resource Generation, and others to help them along.

Sandel takes aim st the graduate cosmopolitan class and gives them both barrels. He describes the meritocratic system as valorising a class who believe their personal talent justifies high pay and status whilst humiliating those with less talent as undeserving and dumb. This hubris and humiliation led to populism and the social divisions exemplified by Trump, Brexit, the yellow jackets etc. Its research and reasoning is impeccable. It will make for important and uncomfortable reading for many people who believe they occupy their privileged position by merit. Sandel is scathing in his elimination of this conceit. I bought this together with Head, Hand and Heart by David Goodhart that covers much of the same ground by describing how society has come to undervalue work performed by hand or compassion. Both books rank in my Top Ten. In an age where we have made going to university a form of apartheid they should be read by every academic and policy maker. Without reform the populist / protest divide will continue to grow. We must thank Sandel, an elite liberal, for being so honest about the system he swims in.

Michael Sandel is an intelligent thinker. This book challenges us in the Western world to challenge what we value and how society works. It\’s a legitimate challenge and one that Sandel argues compellingly. I like books where I don\’t always 100% agree with the author, because it helps me to question what I think and to consider whether I should change my own stance. Otherwise we live in echo chambers sucking up everything that validates our lifestyle, politics, values and actions. I don\’t always entirely agree with Sandel\’s portrayal of what\’s wrong with society – it comes across as overly polarised at times, but his overall argument is strong and I do agree with it: meritocracy is corrosive of the common good. The rich get richer and the poor are still with us. Maybe you think that\’s fine if you subscribe to a hedonistic or rational egotistic philosophy, but I\’d hope that most of think we can do better as the human race, to be more humble, more considerate, more inclusive. He highlights three aspects of Western societies that we should rethink: (1) the role of higher education; (2) the dignity of work; and (3) the meaning of success. Sandel uses the works of others to good effect. Much of what he writes has been said before in a way, but this book collates this thinking together helpfully to present a contextually strong argument in light of the global coronavirus pandemic. Sandel draws us convincingly towards its titular implication: that society needs to escape the tyranny of merit. A stimulating book for those who are willing to hold up a mirror to life in the fast lane of the Western world.

Absolutely brilliant! This is Michael Sandel’s latest book and just came out last month. In this, he explains the rise of populism and of Brexit and Trump as having been caused by “the tyranny of Merit”. The belief in meritocracy leads to hubris amongst the winners and humiliation of the losers since those who are successful think it is their own talent and hard work that has made them successful and therefore they look down disdainfully at those less successful. It also leads to an acceptance of high levels of inequality by believing that everyone gets their just rewards in a market economy. Those in the bottom half are not only losing out in terms of income and wealth, but also in terms of dignity and societal recognition. This resentment against the elite is tapped into by populist leaders who use it for their own political ends.

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