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

Michael J. Sandel

4.21 · Rating details · 6,953 ratings · 991 reviews

These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favour of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the promise that "you can make it if you try". And the consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fuelled populist protest, with the triumph of Brexit ...more

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Paperback, 272 pages

Published September 10th 2020 by Allen Lane

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May 30, 2021 Trevor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: social-theory

I’ve read a few books on merit now – they should come up if you search my shelves – and I would recommend any of them, but this is a particularly good telling of the ‘anti-merit’ argument. The warnings about the dangers of meritocracy are literally (and I mean literally, not figuratively) as old as the term itself. That’s because the guy who coined the term in 1958, Michael Young, did so as the premise for his novel on a future dystopia. In fact, he was so annoyed that the term was being used fo ...more

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Sep 23, 2020 Clif Hostetler rated it liked it

Shelves: current-events

What could possibly be wrong with a political and social structure that allows citizens to rise to the level of wealth and prestige equivalent to their ability? Many politicians proudly proclaim that their country is a place where anyone who goes to college and works hard can have their dreams come true to achieve a prosperous and happy life. In light of all these positive comments many readers of this book will be surprised to learn that the term meritocracy was originally coined in 1958 by soc ...more

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Jul 25, 2021 BlackOxford rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, american, sociology, philosophy-theology

The Politics of Humiliation

Anyone familiar with differential calculus can recognise the fundamental logical problem of attributing responsibility for results (pay for performance; test scores; organisation success; etc) to an individual. The contribution of any one factor (person) to a total can only be assessed when all other factors (social background, level of education, genetic composition, ethnicity, etc.) are held constant. So for example, in the question of performance pay, one must be ab The Politics of Humiliation

Anyone familiar with differential calculus can recognise the fundamental logical problem of attributing responsibility for results (pay for performance; test scores; organisation success; etc) to an individual. The contribution of any one factor (person) to a total can only be assessed when all other factors (social background, level of education, genetic composition, ethnicity, etc.) are held constant. So for example, in the question of performance pay, one must be able to discern the relative importance to the salesman’s ‘numbers’ in the context of the entire organisation from the receptionists, secretaries, and researchers, to the scientists, production staff, and managers. Holding these things constant is obviously an impossible task.

Nevertheless we (those blessed for our contributions) seem bent on the idea of assigning personal responsibility for what happens in life. At least when we consider those less well off (and sometimes those better off) than ourselves. We deserve (at least) all that we have. They deserve (and more) exactly what they lack. The psychology and sociology of the meritocracy is pervasive. And the economic, political, and social effects that should have become obvious through masses of academic research over decades have surfaced most acutely in the election of Trump and his takeover of the Republican Party. Hillary Clinton was right - Trump’s followers are indeed the losers in the meritocratic façade. What she didn’t get is that they want to be winners.

Michael Sandel recognises the psychological, social, economic, and political effects of our commitment to merit. But his primary concern is the morality of a merit-based society not its practical consequences. What interests me most about his approach is his identification of Christianity as the source of our effective deification of merit and the main obstacle to our overcoming its tragedies. I think he is justified in doing this; and his brief history of relevant theology is insightful. But I think he is wrong about his inference that personal merit is a Judaeo-Christian idea. Merit is indeed something that appears in Hebrew Scriptures and traditions, but like many other aspects of Judaism, Christianity transformed this idea into something quite unrecognisable in the matrix culture.

The most obvious transformation in Christianity is the notion of personal salvation. In the Hebrew Scriptures, it is Israel, a corporate body not individuals as such, from whom YHWH demands obedience. The individuals mentioned are always tropes for the larger society. Everyone in Israel shares both divine favour and punishment. Early medieval Judaism did develop the idea of the Zachuth Avot, the Merits of the Fathers, through which the ‘goodness’ of Israel’s founders was considered somehow available to all Jews in mitigation of their faults. I suspect that this was in response to the emerging Christian doctrine of the infinite merit achieved by Jesus through his death. But the difference in the two is crucial. The Zachuth is an inter-generational assistance to avoid and atone for fault; Christ’s merit, being infinite, is a complete expiation of fault.

Enter the man, Paul of Tarsus, whose interpretation of what he was told about Jesus is keyed precisely on the idea of the infinitely meritorious death of Christ. If this death wipes out the need for God to punish those who transgress (in later ages called the Atonement Theory), then the only thing necessary to assure one’s eternal salvation is the acceptance of this ‘fact’ as a matter of unshakeable belief. This is uniquely Pauline not Abrahamic. Thus begins the persistent struggle in Christianity to explain the problematic relation Faith/Works. Sandel traces this struggle (with the help of folk like Max Weber) in its various manifestations - Grace/Effort; Providence/Just Deserts; Luck/Character - and shows how its resolution in modern culture is a self-confirming doctrine of Whiggish smugness. Success is a mark of both hard work and divine favour. The meritocracy, in other words, is an institutional embodiment of Christianity. It serves to unite the diverse sects into a greater whole that includes even the most ardent atheists.

Isn’t it interesting that the Trump followers are the most conservative (that is to say, authoritarian, racist, misogynistic, as well as Christian) in the population? Despite their tendency toward violence, they really don’t want a revolution. Their ideal is merely to impose the same kind of humiliation which they have been subject to on the current social winners. They don’t want respect; they want revenge. But ultimately they are trapped in the same doubts about respectability/worth/significance as are their more successful compatriots. Meritocracy makes us all losers. But unless the consequences of Pauline Christianity and its secular residue are owned up to, we’re likely to just keep digging that hole deeper. ...more

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Jun 15, 2020 David Wineberg rated it liked it

“The more we think of ourselves as self-made and self-sufficient, the harder it is to learn gratitude and humility. And without these sentiments, it is hard to care for the common good.” This is the framework for Michael Sandel’s The Tyranny of Merit. A noble sentiment, it is an attack on the so-called meritocracy the USA runs on. Unfortunately, it’s a difficult read and doesn’t solve any problems. And it is often simply misguided.

Meritocracy is a system in which people rise to their level of in ...more

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Dec 09, 2020 Ryan Boissonneault rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

A meritocracy is a political system in which economic goods and political power are vested in individuals on the basis of talent, effort, and achievement, rather than on wealth, social class, or other arbitrary prejudices.

The principle is simple and easily illustrated with an example. Let’s say you’re hiring someone to perform a job, in this case a mechanic to repair your car. Who should you choose? In the interest of both efficiency (the mechanic's capacity to quickly make affordable, quality ...more

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Nov 06, 2020 Jacob Naur rated it did not like it

Sandel wants to restore the dignity of work by universal basic income (he does not call it that but that is what it is), because he thinks Trump got elected by white, racist males with no college degrees left behind by globalization. Thus, every worker (in Sandels imagination: every envious, angry non-college graduate) should have a part of their salary paid directly by the state. Moreover, he wants to make the college admissions process of Harvard into a lottery, so it is random above a certain ...more

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Nov 03, 2020 Paul rated it it was amazing

A philosophical goldmine. This is the book I'm going to be giving to all my cerebral friends for Christmas this year. Political elites all over America NEED to understand this book.

I grew up poor. Took one semester of college but didn't finish, in large part because I was already working as a self-taught computer programmer. It was the late 90s when any breathing programmer was richly rewarded by the dot com boom. My career in technology turned out to be very economically rewarding, better than A philosophical goldmine. This is the book I'm going to be giving to all my cerebral friends for Christmas this year. Political elites all over America NEED to understand this book.

I grew up poor. Took one semester of college but didn't finish, in large part because I was already working as a self-taught computer programmer. It was the late 90s when any breathing programmer was richly rewarded by the dot com boom. My career in technology turned out to be very economically rewarding, better than if I had taken 4 years to finish college. Through it all, I have always acknowledged this truth: luck and other factors influenced my successes at least as much as my hard work and self-study. Many other similarly gifted programmers live in my part of the world, and the magic of having worked for a startup unicorn didn't happen to them. I was convicted by something Taleb wrote in "Fooled by Randomness" about a janitor who won the lottery, but if you had re-rolled the dice of his life a million more times, he would not have made a lot of money in those other lives, comparing it to a professional like a dentist whose financial life would turn out decently in most of the million alternate possible lifetimes. In some ways, I was the janitor who won the lottery.

In a society that increasingly believes we are living in a meritocracy, people come to believe that Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates level riches are something a person morally deserves because of free markets, as well as the result of their cultivated talents, hard work, intelligence, etc. The dark side of this belief: if the ultra successful merited their rewards, then we are led to believe that those who do not win the race also morally deserve their failure. We imagine they failed because it was their fault, so they deserve their lot in life too. Over time, these attitudes evolve a group of elites whose kids start the 100M race of life on the 90M line, competing against other children who start on the actual starting line. It is obvious who will win such a race. Worse yet, the winners are enabled to think it was all their hard work that brought their successes, often ignoring the role of luck and circumstance, as well as their special talents and gifts bestowed on them by factors outside their control -- for example, I can make no special moral claim to have chosen to be born natural abilities that led me to success as a computer programmer. Then also there is the fact that I was born into a time and place which valued those gifts. Nerdy guys born into the 1800s were not similarly advantaged, and I had no control over which timeline I was born into. Successful people who think they did it all by themselves are displaying "Meritocratic Hubris".

Skip forward to my favorite chapter, which described the lives of many Americans who, like me, didn't finish college and worked in what are sometimes called "unskilled" careers. They were working in factories and other industries which for decades have been increasingly outsourced to cheaper labor markets. Some of their jobs have been lost to cheaper labor provided by undocumented economic immigrants from Latin America. I absolutely understand the motivation of migrants to escape the poverty of a place like Guatemala, having lived there for two years in the middle 90s. But until this book, I had not felt full empathy for the bleak situation of my many
fellow citizens here in America. I had been telling myself the also-true narrative that migrants come here often for jobs in farm work that most US citizens won't do, and that many of these migrants are shamefully exploited as a permanent underclass of cheap labor, constantly in fear of being deported, under Trump more than ever before. But there is another underdog that also needs my support and respect: these US citizens who were left behind by a globalizing economy. Instead of showing true concern and care, our political elites are guilty of treating these people condescendingly. Many white males without college degrees have simply stopped trying to find the employment that they've lost. Imagine being told by condescending social elites that the solution is to just learn new life skills, and "The more you learn, the more you can earn." Previous to 2016, the states that went for Trump had been suffering increasing rates of "deaths by despair" -- alcoholism, drugs, suicide.

I've always believed that all honest work is dignified, and I was particularly touched by a story of Martin Luther King Jr speaking to a group of sanitation workers (garbage men) and telling them that their work is as valuable to society as that of doctors, because without the work they do we would all be living in filth and disease. American society needs to do some thinking about whether the only goal of a free market should be money and ever increasing profits at the expense of wellbeing. We need to come back to a vision of work that offers dignity and respect for the contributions made by all members of our societies.

I really hope some of the elites pick up this book and are taught the empathy that I gained from it. We need to get the conversation moving forward, bring all participants to the table and perhaps after discarding our meritocratic hubris we can rediscover our shared humanity in the process.
...more

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Jan 16, 2022 jasmine sun rated it really liked it

Shelves: theory, education, sociology, politics

i ran into a random stanford alum in nyc yesterday. after going over our graduation years (she was '16, i white lied as a '21), she asked what i was reading. i responded with this book and she laughed: "yeah, that sounds right."

in the tyranny of merit, sandel poses that america spends all this energy trying to perfect our educational meritocracy (affirmative action, standardized testing, etc) without ever questioning its foundational assumptions — and their consequences for our civic and politic i ran into a random stanford alum in nyc yesterday. after going over our graduation years (she was '16, i white lied as a '21), she asked what i was reading. i responded with this book and she laughed: "yeah, that sounds right."

in the tyranny of merit, sandel poses that america spends all this energy trying to perfect our educational meritocracy (affirmative action, standardized testing, etc) without ever questioning its foundational assumptions — and their consequences for our civic and political fabric.

i loved the first half on the intellectual history of the meritocratic ideal and the evolution of higher ed as american symbol. this is where sandel's background as an undergrad philosophy professor shines: there are fascinating ties to protestantism and predestination, hayekian economics and rawlsian justice, eugenics and anti-semitism in college admissions.

the last half of the book discusses ways to define status outside of merit. sandel brings up the notion of "contributive justice," which for him, mostly translates into rewarding the act of work itself rather than the credential attached to it. yet in spanning policy areas from university admissions to progressive tax codes, i found the recommendations too shallow and scattered to be able to engage with the depth of the problems he identifies.

you might finish this book feeling pretty cynical: he suggests it's all but impossible to draw lines around 'merit' without creating a status hierarchy. it doesn't matter how fair the process is or how deserving the winners are — the communities you create are tainted by the fact of the gate itself, that the elite group is defined primarily by their superiority over those outside the lines.

meritocracy's ideals have been imprinted onto me familially and culturally; i've spent my whole life feeling disgusted by the endless hoop-jumping, yet continuing to participate again and again. statistically, i'm a relative "winner" in the meritocratic game, yet emotionally, i resonated with sandel's emphasis on the shame, humiliation, and indignity that meritocracy seeds.

but i don't know if i'll be able to do much different after reading this: sure, merit might be a social construct, but like all the other social constructs, it's all too real. ...more

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Sep 30, 2020 Kaveh rated it it was amazing

Every single book authored by Michael Sandel has transformed the way I perceive the moral and political world around me and this book was no exception. To me, this book was the best analysis of the 2016 election of Donald Trump in the U.S., the Brexit in the UK, and the populist movement around the world. Michael Sandel brings to light the failure of the elites (like those that live in my liberal bubbles) to see their role in creating the populist response in the last decade.

(Hint: If you're a ...more

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Jul 21, 2021 Todd rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy, society

What's become of the common good? Well, if we are to listen to the growing chorus of books on the topic, it has melted into the air or has wilted from neglect. With his latest work, Michael Sandel ventures into this fray. In The Tyranny of Merit, Sandel attempts to thread the fine needle between criticizing meritocracy and keeping the door shut on the older class and race-based hierarchies of yesteryear. As a whole, it's a strong work of moral and political philosophy. After a promising introduc ...more

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Oct 01, 2020 Jolynn rated it it was ok

I seriously hated this book for reasons too numerous to recount. Very disappointed. At a very basic level, if you are going to write a book where you continually evoke “the elite” and “merit” — defining the terms would be an excellent start. The lack of care with definitions and repeated invocations of unproven and unsupported premises made this book incredibly problematic for me.

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Oct 16, 2020 Veronica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: economics, beloved

"The technocratic faith in markets set the stage for populist discontent. The market-driven version of globalization brought growing inequality. It also devalued national identities and allegiances. As goods and capital flowed freely across national borders, those who stood astride the global economy valorized cosmopolitan identities as a progressive enlightened alternative to the narrow, parochial ways of protectionism, tribalism, and conflict. The real political divide, they argued, was no lon "The technocratic faith in markets set the stage for populist discontent. The market-driven version of globalization brought growing inequality. It also devalued national identities and allegiances. As goods and capital flowed freely across national borders, those who stood astride the global economy valorized cosmopolitan identities as a progressive enlightened alternative to the narrow, parochial ways of protectionism, tribalism, and conflict. The real political divide, they argued, was no longer left versus right but open versus closed. This implied that critics of outsourcing, free-trade agreements, and unrestricted capital flows were closed-minded rather than open-minded, tribal rather than global."

"To reinvigorate democratic politics, we need to find our way to a morally more robust public discourse, one that takes seriously the corrosive effect of meritocratic thriving on the social bonds that constitute our normal life."

"The Calvinist doctrine of predestination, combined with the idea that the elect must prove their election through work in a calling, leads to the notion that worldly success is a good indication of who is destined for salvation…this confers divine sanction on the division of labor and supports a ‘providential interpretation of the economic order….The humility prompted by helplessness in the face of grace gives way to the hubris prompted by belief in one’s own merit…In the end, merit drove out grace. The ethic of mastery and self-making overwhelmed the ethic of gratitude and humility. Working and striving became imperative of their own, detached from
calvinist notions of predestination and the anxious search for a sign of salvation."

"One of the casualties of meritocracy’s triumph may be the loss of broad public support for higher education. Once widely seen as an engine of opportunity, the university has become, at least for some, a symbol of credentialist privilege and meritocratic hubris."

"Foroohar argues that the primary takers in today’s economy are those in the financial industry who engage in speculative activity that reaps enormous windfalls without contributing to the real economy."

"Higher education has become a sorting machine that promises mobility on the basis of merit but entrenches privilege and promotes attitudes toward success corrosive of the commonality democracy require."

"Wages and salaries are not awards for good character or worthy achievement but simply payments that reflect the economic value of the goods and services market participants have to offer."

"The meritocratic ideal is not a remedy for inequality; it is justification of inequality."

"One way of framing the globalization debate casts the ‘highly skilled, college-educated winners of the modern economy’ as open-minded and their critics as closed-minded, as if questioning the free flow of goods, capital, and people across national borders were a kind of bigotry. It is hard to imagine a more condescending way of defending neoliberal globalization to those it leaves behind."

An aside of powerful men enumerating their ‘wits’:
“I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect. I went to law school on a full academic scholarship—the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship…and in fact ended up in the top half of my class. I was the outstanding student in the political science department at the end of my year. I graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school and 165 credits—only needed 123 credits—and I’d be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours." (Joe Biden)

“I was at the top of my class academically, busted my butt in school. Captain of the varsity basketball team. Got in Yale College. When I got into Yale College, got into Yale Law School…That’s the number one law school in the country. I had no connections there. I got there by busting my tail in school.” (Brett Kavanaugh)

“Now, you know, I was a good student. I always hear about the elite. You know, the elite—they’re elite? I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were. I live in a bigger, more beautiful apartment. And I live in the White House, too, which is really great.” (Trump) ...more

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Dec 21, 2021 Wick Welker rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, economics, nonfiction-favorites, politics, racial-justice

Time for contributive justice.

Slowly but surely this book reeled me in. In the US we have long since fetishized meritocracy, the idea that we are rewarded according to our efforts and talents. It is an incredibly enticing ideology that both modern political parties have bought into with disastrous consequences for the average American.

If we all subscribe to meritocracy then immediately we valorize income and profession. Immediate is the inference that those who have not succeeded deserve their Time for contributive justice.

Slowly but surely this book reeled me in. In the US we have long since fetishized meritocracy, the idea that we are rewarded according to our efforts and talents. It is an incredibly enticing ideology that both modern political parties have bought into with disastrous consequences for the average American.

If we all subscribe to meritocracy then immediately we valorize income and profession. Immediate is the inference that those who have not succeeded deserve their lot and those that are successfully deserve all the wealth and accolades. Both neoliberal acolytes like Reagan and centric Democrats like Clinton created the age of technocratic moralizing. A college degree is supposed to be the ladder to success. Only that gateway has been closed to most for most of the existence of the US. And only with recent opening of admission to the underprivileged, the poor and non-white--the numbers still skew toward the privileged and legacy donors. A college degree also guarantees nothing anymore other than enormous debt. Education does very little for upward social mobility and the liberal elites have made it their platform of fixing our society for the last 40 years. What you get is social resentment and entire swathes of people left behind, seething in anger and ready for a populist back lash.

There is a difference between between value and merit. Some people indeed have inborn talents or discipline that they have worked hard to achieve. Yet, they also have the luck to live in a time where those talents happen to be rewarded. LeBron James would likely not be a famous multi-millionaire if he were born 100 years ago. Innate talent and drive are not the only factors of success but the social milieu in which they exist.

What white middle workers fear is not just economic loss, but cultural obsecelence. The dignity of work has been eroded and placed in the hands of the professional elite and the finance district. Why are capital gains taxes less than labor taxes? Because we place more value on the corporatocracy, believing it to be the driver of jobs. Yet globalization and financializaiton have rendered the "job creators" as the ultimate takers, cashing in with stock buybacks, dividends, LBOs or speculating on the market.

As the writer argues, it's time for contributive justice and not just distributive justice. Meaning, yes we can place earnings into the less fortunate but we can also bring dignity back to all work by actually allowing all peoples to contribute back to society, rather than only valuing them as consumers.

This was a phenomenal read. One of my fav of 2021. ...more

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Dec 21, 2020 Steve added it

Professor Sandel asserts with this work that the American meritocracy is an illusion, one he adeptly parses, while providing important insight into our national political dynamics, specifically, the seemingly incomprehensible adoration for President Trump, who received some 74 million votes in the most recent election. There must be something very much awry in our republic for a man of such reprehensible character to receive such broad, enthusiastic support. Professor Sandel reports much is inde Professor Sandel asserts with this work that the American meritocracy is an illusion, one he adeptly parses, while providing important insight into our national political dynamics, specifically, the seemingly incomprehensible adoration for President Trump, who received some 74 million votes in the most recent election. There must be something very much awry in our republic for a man of such reprehensible character to receive such broad, enthusiastic support. Professor Sandel reports much is indeed awry, for we now live in a self-reinforcing world of educated haves and uneducated have-nots. How ironic that this work was authored by someone perched atop that meritocracy; then again, who better to describe the machine than one of its cogs? Yet, I largely agree with both his analysis and conclusions, particularly with respect to education.

While the anomalies associated with our society point to notable inefficiencies, I’m struck that we live in an environment experiencing accelerating change, one that defies simple analysis. Think of the change a European witnessed between, say, the years 1050 and 1100. Now, compare the changes witnessed from 1970 to 2020. It’s one thing to speak of optimizing social outcomes in a static environment; introduce change – and ever-increasing change at that – and optimization becomes daunting, I think.

Government especially will forever be behind the curve on adapting to social change, as the obvious inability to anticipate or react to issues involving technology demonstrates. Gross wealth accumulation in this country, to pick on just one aberration, is fostered by systems, laws and policies constructed with little to no allowance for dynamic progression, where a meritocracy has become focused on gaming those structures, which they themselves helped create, for selfish purposes and with enviable aplomb – large company CEO compensation easily comes to mind as one notable and ever growing excess, one that seems to know no limit. I am pessimistic for a better order, one where the effects of randomness, often confused with earned and deserved skill, are fairly considered in social reward structures and our naturally endowed wealth is apportioned with greater equality. Does anyone really believe our elected representatives are up to the task? I wish to be proven wrong.
...more

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Jan 23, 2021 Mark Jr. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, 2021, library-book

I loved Sandel's book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? His power is incisive analysis: he cuts to the Augustinian heart of divisive issues using classic philosophical tools. He also explains all this slowly and clearly. He is the single most gifted guide of classroom discussion that I have ever seen (I not only read Justice; I watched the WBUR Boston recordings of his class; they were sterling).

This book wasn't quite as lean and refined as Justice; it also didn't deal with as important a t I loved Sandel's book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? His power is incisive analysis: he cuts to the Augustinian heart of divisive issues using classic philosophical tools. He also explains all this slowly and clearly. He is the single most gifted guide of classroom discussion that I have ever seen (I not only read Justice; I watched the WBUR Boston recordings of his class; they were sterling).

This book wasn't quite as lean and refined as Justice; it also didn't deal with as important a topic. It was a bit long and a bit repetitive (though because I listened to the audio, read patiently and engagingly by the author, that actually worked out well). And it didn't seem to me to solve the dilemma it kept tossing from hand to hand for hour after hour: If meritocracy isn't so great, and aristocracy not so great either, then what?!

But I'm burying a really important lede: What Sandel did do was give me the best answer I've yet seen to a question I haven't been able to answer since 2016—why in the world did so many Americans vote for reality TV star Donald Trump?! This wasn't the point of the book, more of a very important supporting argument. The main argument was that meritocracy sounds good as a means of allocating certain sought-after goods in a society such as admission to elite colleges and access to high-paying and valorized professions. But—and I'll never forget this—meritocracy tends to make the "winners" feel arrogantly self-congratulatory, forgetful of how very many aspects of their success had nothing to do with their effort; and it tends to make the "losers" feel, well, like that's just what they are. They didn't have the talent or drive to achieve the American Dream, so they're out. Here's where Trump comes in: regular people who do work essential to our society *but not valorized by it* don't like it when elites look down on them. It's galling to hear Hillary Clinton call vast numbers of people "a basket of deplorables," to hear President Obama sneering at those who trust in "God and guns." It's offensive to be told that you are racist for complaining about factory jobs being taken by people in other countries. And yet meritocracy has not only produced all this, it has tempted elites to talk as if credentials equal intelligence, to boot. (I think of Matthew Crawford's Shopclass as Soulcraft, an excellent book, which showed the intellectual challenges inherent in much manual work.)

Aristocracy may keep the peasants and serfs down, but at least they can say to themselves, "I have the talent to rise." They are less likely to conclude, "I am a loser." And aristocracy can produce a noblesse oblige on the part of the aristocrats: they know they don't deserve their privilege, so they share their wealth.

This again, is where I say, "Then what?!" Because I just don't see the West moving back to aristocracy, not on purpose. And if I'm stuck behind Rawls' pre-birth curtain, I'd still choose the meritocratic society and its opportunity over the aristocratic one and its stratified classes. (Though I admit I was shocked to discover that upward mobility in America is actually noticeably lower than it is in a number of European countries.)

So I appreciated Sandel's practical suggestions for toning down the worst elements of meritocracy. And there was a huge irony in one of his key suggestions. Follow me… Sandel critiqued Puritanism as if it were straight up Pelagianism. There was one key line that was just so egregiously wrong—and yet, in a way, perfectly right. He said that the Puritan emphasis on God's grace in election got twisted into self-congratulation for being elect. That is so, so wrong, because Puritans of all people knew that they humbly had no purchase on God's grace, nothing in them to merit it. And yet they would be the first to point out that the human heart is so fallen that it can turn God's grace into a badge of pride. Instead of a critique of the Puritans, I heard in Sandel a critique of human nature. Sandel knows from long labor, I will hazard, that secularism and classical liberalism don't offer serious moral philosophies, so he takes theology seriously, something for which I was grateful. And here I come back to the irony. He proved to me that meritocracy on elite campuses—like the Harvard where he has taught for four decades—is terribly harmful, to the meritocrats and the basket of deplorables alike. He persuaded me that a lottery system would be a much better way for Harvard to select applicants. But by doing this he is, to my mind, implicitly arguing for the grace of God. The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.

Sandel also argued that one way to valorize work rightly would be to legally curtail the money markets, the complex financial instruments that can net millions for the right bettors without actually doing much of anything to invest in business or produce any goods and services of value. This I found persuasive, too.

Biblical theology teaches from its very first page that work is a God-given good. God told Adam to "work and keep" the garden even before the fall. But by page 3, human work has been deeply frustrated by the fall: we've got thorns and thistles everywhere. Sandel's calls to valorize all good work rang biblically true for me.

So did his critiques of meritocracy. One of the most important parables in my theology is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. It shows that no one will get less good than he deserves for his work, but that the Master is generous and sometimes spills out amazing blessing on some and not others. All good I enjoy is by God's grace. There's a reason that conservative evangelical Christians keep saying this to one another. We both believe it and are, by that phrase, asking that Master to help our unbelief. To diminish our pride, our tendency to hoard moral merit in our hearts.

Sandel's book gives me some intellectual tools, tools of careful moral philosophy and of assiduous and wise observation of our world, to help me trust more to God's grace and to be humble and grateful. ...more

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May 09, 2021 Nelson Zagalo rated it it was amazing

Shelves: behavioral-economics, education, top_30_non_fiction, best_books_ever, academic

Although repetitive, "The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?" (2020) by Michael Sandel was the most transformative book I have read in recent years, as it touches on fundamental current issues that explain the intricate human relations of our society at the beginning of this century. The principal point of this book is revealed as: The dignity of our work is not measured by the salary we receive.

A análise completa, extensa, encontra-se no meu blog em Português:
https://virtual-i ...more

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Dec 27, 2021 Matthew Jordan rated it it was amazing

Michael Sandel straight up GOATed. What a legend. For some reason, his books really got me this year. I think Tyranny of Merit is at the top of my "full book is better than the one-hour podcast interview" list for 2021. My brain was exploding with thoughts the entire time, because this book is about a class of person I very squarely belong to: hard-working graduates of esteemed universities. So a lot of the arguments hit very close to home, and made me realize just how perverse the attitudes of ...more

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Sep 20, 2020 Ietrio rated it did not like it

Shelves: junk

The Common Good is for you to pay for Sandel's wages, pension, health care, even his nephew's education. So perish the thought of you enjoying your earnings, because Sandel has made plans to speak in Europe, all expenses paid by you. ...more

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Mar 09, 2021 Janna rated it really liked it

For most of my life, I’ve taken for granted that the idea of “equality of opportunity,” or meritocracy, while not perfect, is a democracy’s best tool to ensure everyone a fair place at the starting line. This book changed my mind. In the words of author Michael J. Sandel, “The meritocratic ideal is not a remedy for inequality; it is a justification of inequality.”

For an extended review of this title, check out Audiobook Reviews in Five Minutes: https://podcast.jannastam.com/episode...
...more

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Jan 03, 2021 Caroline rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, economics, philosophy-religion

Sandel argues that the shift to a meritocratic system, which seemed so just in comparison to inherited rights or other ‘systems,’ in fact has two critical flaws in its implementation. First, particularly as seen in educational systems, it ignores the differential benefits of nurturing across environments that range from upper crust helicopter parenting to fend-for-yourself because your parents are working three jobs apiece to keep food on the table. That one is well known. I worked for the Unive Sandel argues that the shift to a meritocratic system, which seemed so just in comparison to inherited rights or other ‘systems,’ in fact has two critical flaws in its implementation. First, particularly as seen in educational systems, it ignores the differential benefits of nurturing across environments that range from upper crust helicopter parenting to fend-for-yourself because your parents are working three jobs apiece to keep food on the table. That one is well known. I worked for the University of California for most of my career and while admissions processes tried to allow for these differences, age 18 is late in the game for making up ground.

The second problem is more subtle and more devastating. Reading this book during terrifying attempts to undo our election brought it home. Sandel provides a convincing portrayal of how the embrace of merit has told half the US population it has no value. That it’s too ‘stupid’ to know what the correct thing to do is.

As a measure of meritocracy’s hold on the public mind, the growing frequency of “smart” is less revealing that its changing meaning. Not only did “smart” refer to digital systems and devices; it increasingly became the general term of praise and a way of arguing for one policy rather than another. As an evaluative contrast, “smart versus dumb” began to displace ethical or ideological contrast, such as ‘just versus unjust” or “right versus wrong.” Both Clinton and Obama frequently argued that their favored policy was “not just the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do.” This rhetorical tick suggested that, in a meritocratic age, being smart carried more persuasive heft than being right.

When I was a too-smart young thing moving from a BA at a major public university to a PhD program at an Ivy, I had a discussion with my mother about NAFTA, just being implemented. She said, but what about all those people whose jobs will be lost? I had no patience. To me at the time, my mother seemed to lack all powers of analysis. But it’s better for all of us, I explained. They will go to work in a field where we have a competitive advantage and we will all be better off. My mother was unconvinced. My mother was right. Not ‘smart.’ Right. We didn’t do right by those people.

Sandel writes:

Elites seemed oblivious not only to the partisan character of their “smart” policies, but also to the hubristic attitudes their persistent talk of “smart” and “dumb” expressed...By 2016, many working people chafed under the sense that well-schooled elites looked down on them with condescension...at a time when racism and sexism are out of favor (discredited though not eliminated), credentialism is the last acceptable prejudice. In the United States and Europe, disdain for the poorly educated is more pronounced, or at least more readily acknowledged, than prejudice against other disfavored groups.

Not only that, those left out of the game recognize that the elites are committed to global profits, damn the consequences to their fellow (US) Americans. So Sandel then asks, what if the ideal of meritocracy is so flawed it can’t be fairly implemented “because helping people scramble up the ladder of success in a competitive meritocracy is a hollow political project that reflects an impoverished conception of citizenship and freedom?”

Sandel spends considerable time working through the various ideas of distributive justice (e. g. Hayek, Rawls), but concludes that there is no way to find a method of distributive justice that we can agree on. Next, he talks about the theories of work put forth by Hegel and Durkheim. He posits that “they did not see work mainly as a means to the end of consumption. Instead they argued that work, at its best, is a socially integrating activity, an arena of recognition, a way of honoring our obligation to contribute to the common good.”

Sandel says we need to turn to public policies that will offer dignified and valued work for all: contributive justice. People full of resentment need to feel that the work they do is truly seen and valued. This is tough, and I found the end of the book brief on the solution side. Non-college education is one idea he mentions: in 2014-2015, the US spent $162 billion on college grants, loans and tax credits, but only $1 billion on career and technical education. His analysis really focuses on ideas such as a wage subsidy, and a wide range of financial services changes. For example, remove the false ‘profits’ from non-productive speculation (e.g. derivatives) and other egregious 1% actions by ‘shift[ing] the tax burden from work to consumption and speculation. ‘ Bottom line: push hard that in the comparison of ‘makers’ and ‘takers,’ we change the definition of who is a maker and who is a taker.
...more

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Sep 20, 2020 Ray Kluender rated it really liked it

This is a wonderful example of accessible political philosophy writing -- Sandel's an incredibly clear writer and his ideas came through very effectively.

Pieces of this book were transcendent and really challenged my worldview. I'm ashamed to say I'd never given much explicit thought to the implications of national rhetoric and mythos centered around the ideals of meritocracy for those who wind up on the losing end. The strongest parts of the book trace the ways our emphasis on meritocracy deva This is a wonderful example of accessible political philosophy writing -- Sandel's an incredibly clear writer and his ideas came through very effectively.

Pieces of this book were transcendent and really challenged my worldview. I'm ashamed to say I'd never given much explicit thought to the implications of national rhetoric and mythos centered around the ideals of meritocracy for those who wind up on the losing end. The strongest parts of the book trace the ways our emphasis on meritocracy devalues the lives and work of those whose skills aren't valued by the labor market for reasons outside their control. It also provided the first profound and new explanation for the rise of populism in recent years -- condescending to those who are struggling by emphasizing the importance of education just isn't helpful as politics or policy.

Further, Sandel makes a compelling argument on the downsides of meritocracy even for those who benefit from it because they have so much to lose. There's certainly an unhealthy anxiety embedded in our culture of prestige that I'm intimately familiar with.

There were a few places where I thought the arguments were weaker. In general, Sandel spends way too much time focusing on the undergraduate Ivy League experience -- this just isn't relevant for 99.9% of Americans. He pretty selectively included evidence on some of the economics research with which I was familiar and his arguments against technocracy were especially unconvincing (full disclosure: I am a technocrat): the argument effectively boiled down to the idea that the New Deal was executed without technocrats so how could they possibly be useful.

I also pretty fundamentally disagreed with Sandel's conclusions -- see Matt Yglesias' new book for a counterargument on why widely expanding protectionism and limited immigration would be a disaster for American standing in the world. It's also very difficult to engage with policy solutions from someone with so much disdain for incentives and market forces and policy expertise. It was pretty surprising for the book to close with consumption taxes and taxes on frequent trading as even partial solutions.

All that said, this was a book that made me question some of my core beliefs and fundamentally changed the way I will think about the rhetoric and politics of opportunity. Rounding 3.5 stars up to 4 since not many books leave this kind of impression. ...more

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Jul 14, 2021 Diz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, politics, current-events

Sandel critiques the concept of meritocracy in this book and describes how it damages society. Both the left and the right promote meritocracy in different forms.

On the left, meritocracy comes in a form that focuses on education. In this form, those who get educated deserve to reap the rewards in society. In particular, the left promotes going to university (a prestigious one if possible) and encourages graduate study or developing a high level of expertise in one's field. While education is ce Sandel critiques the concept of meritocracy in this book and describes how it damages society. Both the left and the right promote meritocracy in different forms.

On the left, meritocracy comes in a form that focuses on education. In this form, those who get educated deserve to reap the rewards in society. In particular, the left promotes going to university (a prestigious one if possible) and encourages graduate study or developing a high level of expertise in one's field. While education is certainly a positive thing, the unspoken reverse of this idea is that those who are less fortunate are too dumb and uneducated to improve their situation because they failed to educate themselves. In other words, it is the fault of the unfortunate for not pursuing higher education. This is a corrosive attitude for building a democratic society as 2/3 of the U.S. population do not have a university degree. As a result, elites who follow this form of meritocracy may feel that experts should make more decisions, which devalues the voices of the less educated as participants in the democratic process. Additionally, this form of meritocracy devalues work that doesn't require a university degree, which is ironic considering what types of work were deemed essential in the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

On the right, meritocracy comes in a form that focuses on material wealth. This is connected to the ideas of the Protestant work ethic and more recently to prosperity gospel. In its non-religious version, this form of meritocracy promotes the idea that wealth comes to those who work hard, so they deserve the wealth that they have. In its religious form, wealth is a sign of divine blessing and is thus the will of God. The unspoken part of this form of meritocracy is that the unfortunate either did not work hard enough or have somehow displeased God. This puts the unfortunate in a hopeless position as there are many of them that work harder than the more fortunate, or they may actually be more religious than the rich around them. When working or believing harder doesn't work for them, it's very demoralizing.

Towards the end of the book, Sandel provides a few solutions. The one that he seems most interested in is eliminating payroll tax and replacing it with a tax on financial transactions. By doing this, the penalty on doing productive work is decreased and the penalty on doing non-productive work is increased. Something to think about. ...more

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Nov 10, 2020 Dan Devine rated it it was ok

Another entry into 'good academic tries to fulfil popular publishing contract', like 'How Democracies End' by David Runciman. The book could be condensed to about 50 pages. Very little actual research cited, very little philosophy. Most examples are from the US and UK (how many times can you read 'Like Donald Trump's election, and the 2016 Brexit vote in the UK'?), and other cherry-picked examples.

An important topic which I broadly agree with done over far too many pages with far too little eff ...more

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Aug 22, 2020 Leah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I loved this book. I think it is Sandel's best yet. He is one of the world's great philosophers for a mass audience so, as ever, the prose is clear and engaging. I devoured it in two sittings. I particularly enjoyed the idea of contributive justice which he explores towards the end . A very helpful alternative to the endless back and forth about the validity of voting for Trump and BREXIT. It is both intuitive and unintuitive in the best sense. I highly recommend it.

*Disclaimer: A received a fr ...more

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Dec 28, 2020 Steve rated it it was amazing

Liked very much, this book made great points in criticizing both the left and right in their support for meritocracy. Pretending that success in life in basically due to smarts and hard work is an insult to the “bottom” 50%, many of whom work plenty hard and are perfectly smart. The truth is there’s a ton of luck involved, whether one has “succeeded” or “failed.” Of course, an overwhelmingly large part of this luck involves who your parents are. Didn’t agree with every single thing in the book, ...more

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Sep 23, 2020 Nils rated it it was amazing

Meritocracy has become toxic when merged with highly unequal pecuniary awards, which open up huge gaps in dignity, says Sandel. We need to develop a notion of "contributive justice" in which everyone is properly appreciated for the contribution they make the collective good, with prestige judged on that basis, rather than simply on how much money we make. ...more

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Dec 29, 2021 Iulia rated it it was amazing

I picked up this book because I, like many others, believe in the ideal of meritocracy. I believe in education as a way forward for society.
What Sandel does in this book is to show the dark sides of the choices our societies make. While meritocracy may be have been necessary forward movement decades ago, it might not be the next step as it leaves a big portion of the population behind.
The book refers mostly to the American context, but easy comparisons might be drawn to our European society. Whi ...more

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Dec 06, 2020 Randy rated it liked it

Shelves: philosophy

In the last few years, I read several books on meritocracy, not necessarily exclusively. Recently I went to a bookstore for the first time since early March, saw this book, and decided to read it.

I finished in a few days and have very mixed feeling. The introduction and 2nd half of chapter 7 are fine. The sections about the historical, religious and especially philosophical background are valuable, even though I doubt it's for everybody (there's a feel of ivory tower, especially chapter 5. It's In the last few years, I read several books on meritocracy, not necessarily exclusively. Recently I went to a bookstore for the first time since early March, saw this book, and decided to read it.

I finished in a few days and have very mixed feeling. The introduction and 2nd half of chapter 7 are fine. The sections about the historical, religious and especially philosophical background are valuable, even though I doubt it's for everybody (there's a feel of ivory tower, especially chapter 5. It's not likely everybody would read Hayek and Rawls). On the other hand, the analysis about how we got here seems to be deeply flawed or biased, and some discussions feel repetitive.

The author spent quite some pages criticizing Clinton and especially Obama. It's not my intention to defend them. However, he barely touched the subject how we got here in the first place. From the angle of economics, what happened in the last 40 years was the result market fundamentalism (or neoliberalism). This can be traced to 70s at least. After Reagan's election, this version of economics, promoted by Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and later Alan Greenspan, became mainstream (I could list more names like Grover Norquist, but won't). "Shareholder value" above anything else became the only principle in the business world. "Greed is good" became fashionable in the 80s. As the same time, the federal government busted union movement, pretty much stopped antitrust enforcement, using prices instead of market power as the measure in dealing with antitrust. As the result, employees were just a big cost, to be reduced anyway possible, including using contractors, outsourcing. Some years ago, I worked for a big firm. At one point, I worked remotely with a lady in Oklahoma briefly. She said she used to be a full time employee of the same company, but was laid off and hired back as a contractor; then laid off again, and hired back as a part time contractor.

The author seems to miss the elites in the decades after WWII, but doesn't have a lot of kind words for the ones in the last 4 decades. I was really shocked that he didn't realize that those early elites were completely different from the later ones. The earlier groups went through the great depression and WWII, they understood the firms had many responsibilities, and government could and did play a vital role, even in economics. Apparently the recent elites are almost the opposite. You need to look no further than the Romneys, George and Mitt.

The author keeps talking about center-left and center-right. That's almost completely wrong. From economics point of view, there's a center-right party and there's an extreme right party. Until middle 70s, presidents of both parties pretty much followed FDR's economical policy. And in the last 4 decades, all the presidents pretty much followed Reagan economically. Had Republican Party lost in 1984 or 1988, things might have been different, the Democratic Party might not have moved to the right that much. We'll never know.

Under market fundamentalism, people are just consumers, no longer citizens.

Recently I read this: Wall Street owns the Republican Party, and rents the Democratic Party. This seems very true to me.

I was ready to give it 2 stars, but the 2nd half of chapter 7 changed my mind. ...more

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Aug 26, 2021 Cavar Sarah rated it did not like it

Shelves: philosophy-misc, 2021

Oh, man. What a master class in white, male mediocrity. This is a book about how, evidently, white supremacy is not largely responsible for trump’s rise, but rather, white men being sad for reasons Totally Unrelated To People Of Colors’ Success.

If your resistance to meritocracy is primarily in order to re-enfranchise already-powerful white guys who are finally, finally facing the reality that the floor-level standards to which they’ve been previously held will no longer cut it, your resistance ...more

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Mar 31, 2022 Carolyn Kost rated it liked it

Time to re-read Vonnegut's prescient "Harrison Bergeron," about what equity looks like, because that's what we are hurtling toward, and it can't come soon enough for Sandel.

Sandel's basic point is that "helping people scramble up the ladder of success in a competitive meritocracy is a hollow political project that reflects an impoverished conception of citizenship and freedom" (120). "The meritocratic ideal is not a remedy for inequality; it is a justification of inequality" (122). Instead, the ...more

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About Michael J. Sandel

Michael J. Sandel

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Michael J. Sandel is an American political philosopher who lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1980. He is best known for the Harvard course 'Justice', which is available to view online, and for his critique of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of ...more