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

by Michael J. Sandel

“There, but for the grace of God, or the accident of fortune, go I.”

Theologically, it is difficult if not impossible to hold the following three views simultaneously—that God is just, that God is omnipotent, and that evil exists.

The notion that we are free human agents, capable of rising and succeeding by our own effort, is only one aspect of meritocracy. Equally important is the conviction that those who succeed deserve their success.

The providentialist notion that people get what they deserve reverberates in contemporary public discourse. It comes in two versions—one hubristic, the other punitive.

value-neutral experts is a technocratic conceit that corrupts democracy and disempowers ordinary citizens.