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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
I liked this book but it was just barely worthy of 4 stars. Sandel is a professor at Harvard which may account for why the book reads like a lecture transcript. It feels repetitive like a lecture, as if the author is overlapping his paint strokes to get better coverage. I don't think this kind of repetition is necessary in a book format because the reader is able to review themselves simply by turning to previous sections. However the book is short (227 pages) so it could have been worse.
Sandel takes a refreshingly compassionate and self critical stance on the political climate leading to the election of Donald Trump. The book is an attempt to look at the rise in inequality holistically and through the lens of moral philosophy. It focuses on the consequences of a truly meritocratic economic system. Many complain that America is not a true meritocracy and use this as their justification for financial relief programs like welfare or food stamps or education initiatives like affirmative action. But Sandel dispenses with this tired argument entirely and instead asks is a meritocracy a worthy goal at all.
Spoiler alert! The answer is it depends. Sandel's criticism of meritocracy lies at the heart of its founding assumption: that those who work harder merit greater rewards. One of the problems with this idea is that a meritocratic economy does not reward effort fairly. It rewards based on what the market values, which is arbitrary at best and not something the individual has much control over. Sandel uses the example of a drug dealer and a school teacher. Obviously the drug dealer, even if his business were legal, contributes less to the common good than a school teacher. And few would claim a school teacher works less hard or deserves less esteem. However the market values the drug dealer more and the teacher less. A deeper problem, which I believe Sandel avoids addressing directly because it's a bigger pill to swallow and not needed for the main argument, is people can't even claim as much of their efforts as they think.
Differences in talent and interest, opportunity and motivation, health and support are not things people control. Don't misunderstand me, people have some influence over these factors but the fact that their is any luck involved means that some will be unjustly rewarded by the market simply for being born into their unique circumstances. Sandel points out that in a perfect meritocracy this leads to an elite group of lottery winners all patting themselves on the back and looking down on those less worthy than themselves. In other words, is it really the fault of the merit lacking that they lack merit?
Your opinion of this book will largely depend on your answer to that question. It uses this line of argument to explore the consequences of the rising importance of education, the feeling of blue collar workers being left behind by globalization, and the condescension felt by many American's when they hear the phrase "You can make it if you try."
Reason for a weak 4 stars are the recommendations at the end of the book which are a bit impotent. I don't really blame Sandel for this but in the face of such a looming and poisonous problem, his suggestions just feel like they fall flat. For me I could feel myself asking "so what do we do!?" before I reached the proposed solutions and by the time I reached them it felt like Sandel gave me a big shrug and said "I guess we could tax things differently?"
Sandel takes a refreshingly compassionate and self critical stance on the political climate leading to the election of Donald Trump. The book is an attempt to look at the rise in inequality holistically and through the lens of moral philosophy. It focuses on the consequences of a truly meritocratic economic system. Many complain that America is not a true meritocracy and use this as their justification for financial relief programs like welfare or food stamps or education initiatives like affirmative action. But Sandel dispenses with this tired argument entirely and instead asks is a meritocracy a worthy goal at all.
Spoiler alert! The answer is it depends. Sandel's criticism of meritocracy lies at the heart of its founding assumption: that those who work harder merit greater rewards. One of the problems with this idea is that a meritocratic economy does not reward effort fairly. It rewards based on what the market values, which is arbitrary at best and not something the individual has much control over. Sandel uses the example of a drug dealer and a school teacher. Obviously the drug dealer, even if his business were legal, contributes less to the common good than a school teacher. And few would claim a school teacher works less hard or deserves less esteem. However the market values the drug dealer more and the teacher less. A deeper problem, which I believe Sandel avoids addressing directly because it's a bigger pill to swallow and not needed for the main argument, is people can't even claim as much of their efforts as they think.
Differences in talent and interest, opportunity and motivation, health and support are not things people control. Don't misunderstand me, people have some influence over these factors but the fact that their is any luck involved means that some will be unjustly rewarded by the market simply for being born into their unique circumstances. Sandel points out that in a perfect meritocracy this leads to an elite group of lottery winners all patting themselves on the back and looking down on those less worthy than themselves. In other words, is it really the fault of the merit lacking that they lack merit?
Your opinion of this book will largely depend on your answer to that question. It uses this line of argument to explore the consequences of the rising importance of education, the feeling of blue collar workers being left behind by globalization, and the condescension felt by many American's when they hear the phrase "You can make it if you try."
Reason for a weak 4 stars are the recommendations at the end of the book which are a bit impotent. I don't really blame Sandel for this but in the face of such a looming and poisonous problem, his suggestions just feel like they fall flat. For me I could feel myself asking "so what do we do!?" before I reached the proposed solutions and by the time I reached them it felt like Sandel gave me a big shrug and said "I guess we could tax things differently?"
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Not bad. I enjoyed some of his other books better than this one, though I enjoyed the topic of the common good, meritocracy, and the dignity of work.
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5 stars because Sandel challenged my own biases with regards to leadership and education (aka merit). I try not to understate the role of luck and privilege in personal success and outcomes, but I also put a lot of primacy on education. It seems like a no brainer to want highly educated people to make tough decisions in public policy, but sometimes those exact people have been sheltered from the lived experiences of the people they supposedly represent and protect. This is not to say I no longer see import in the pursuit of knowledge, but what substantiates as “qualified” or “unqualified” should be re-examined beyond what prestigious university a politician has hailed from.
I generally agree with much else that Sandel has said about how all this “hoop jumping” reduces people’s worth to just their achievements and devalues human worth beyond their income and credentials.
I generally agree with much else that Sandel has said about how all this “hoop jumping” reduces people’s worth to just their achievements and devalues human worth beyond their income and credentials.
informative
medium-paced
An excellent perspective on the new class conflict that challenged my basic assumptions about justice.
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.
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.
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective