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

by Michael J. Sandel

The appeal of the technocratic position, but also its weakness, is its seemingly frictionless value neutrality. Talk of “smart technology” and “smart regulatory frameworks” glides over the moral and political questions that make climate change a daunting and difficult issue: What would it take to counter the outsize influence of the fossil fuel industry on democratic politics? Should we reconsider the consumerist attitudes that lead us to treat nature instrumentally, as a dumping ground for what Pope Francis has called our “throwaway culture”?89 And what about those who oppose government action to reduce carbon emissions, not because they reject science, but because they do not trust government to act in their interest, especially in a large-scale reconfiguration of the economy, and do not trust the technocratic elites who would design and implement this reconfiguration? These are not scientific questions to be answered by experts. They are questions about power, morality, authority, and trust, which is to say they are questions for democratic citizens.