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

by Michael J. Sandel

Although the age of globalization brought rich rewards to the well-credentialed, it did nothing for most ordinary workers. From 1979 to 2016, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States fell from 19.5 million to 12 million.2 Productivity increased, but workers reaped a smaller and smaller share of what they produced, while executives and shareholders captured a larger share.3 In the late 1970s, CEOs of major American companies made 30 times more than the average worker; by 2014, they made 300 times more.4 The median income of American males has been stagnant, in real terms, for half a century. Although per capita income has increased 85 percent since 1979, white men without a four-year college degree make less now, in real terms, than they did then.5