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myc_w 's review for:
The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?
by Michael J. Sandel
In The Tyranny of Merit, Sandel strongly critiques meritocracy, technocracy, neoliberalism, credentialism, rugged individualism (the discourse of autonomy and self-reliance), free-markets and late-stage capitalism, and the modern Western aristocracy. Which, to be entirely honest, is pretty great. But frankly, it’s pretty easy to point out these problems at this point. Still, he ably links these all together into a web of issues that result in political factionalism, aggrievement politics, the rise of right-wings populism, the visible failures of a corporatized brand of “progressivism”, and the inability of modern political systems to address the growing disillusionment of the working-class. It’s a pretty good take down of the systems that have entrenched and reinforced an increasingly entitled and out of touch class of political and economic elites.
So Sandel does a nice job of sticking it to those in power and explaining how everyone is to blame. Cool. But that sort of begs the question: Does he offer solutions to ameliorate these growing disparities? And the answer is… kind of? He has some interesting ideas like reimagining tax systems that focus less on consumer or income taxes and aim more for taxes on things that contribute less to the real economy and social good—like a financial transaction tax. The pretty standard “obvious if you think about it even a little bit” sort of wealth redistribution ideas. He also suggests that, “We need to rethink the role of universities as arbiters of opportunity,” which, as someone who works in higher education, I couldn’t possibly agree with more. Some of his other ideas, though, don’t seem as though they would actually fix problems. For instance, he suggests admission to elite universities (like Harvard) could be by lottery for qualified students—and discusses ways that the lottery could be gamed in order to preserve issues related to diversity or other institutional concerns (like luring in wealthy donors). And this just seems… unrealistic? Like, it’s obvious that these schools don’t have objective or open admission criteria that grant equitable access to all potential students now and that they are really just self-replicating systems of privilege—but I’m not convinced that introducing an even more random luck element is the fix higher ed needs. But I also don’t have any alternative solutions, so.
Besides his not-quite-fixes, another critique of the book is Sandel’s consistent both-sidesism. He’s not wrong that the center-left abandoned class loyalties and enabled neoliberal capitalist exploitation for their own power while adopting and expanding Reagan and Thatcher’s brand of meritorious individualism and entrenching technocracy and credentialism as part of their platforms in Western democracies. And he’s not wrong that the center-right has drifted further and further right, shifting the Overton window and enabling the rise of strongman politics and neofascism the world over. But. There is a weird amount of blame that he places on the political aristocracy for driving the disaffected working class toward far right populism because they feel as though they’re being made fun of or looked down on by the elitist credentialed intelligentsia. Look, I don’t want to defend the political and economic powers that be. Sure, maybe white, uncredentialed, working-class males in America voted for Trump because they have been accused of being unintelligent or racist or whatever over the decades by the Clintons and Obamas of the world and they’re just leaning into it. Or… maybe Trump represents their beliefs? Maybe Trump empowers the ideas they hold that have been informed by the contexts of their cultural and historical pasts and socioeconomic present (along with being informed by concerted efforts from corporate interests, dark money, and propaganda networks)?
I’m just saying, let people have some agency and maybe stop making apologies for disaffected white folks? Center-left politicians (if we even want to call them that) in America and Canada and the UK and on and on have a number of sins that we can (and should!) critique without necessarily laying the blame for the rise of populism on the right at their feet. Are both sides to blame for the state of the world and the stagnation of the working-class over the last 40 years? Yes. Of course. But are they equally to blame for the world as we see it today? No. And we don’t have to try to blunt our critiques of contemporary “progressivism” with the tired “right wing populism is the fault of the elitist lefties, actually!” argument. The establishment left has problems enough as it is and the adoption of merit discourse is one of them.
But at the end of the day, Sandel is throwing enough shade at everyone that it’s obvious that every political persuasion has to bear some of the responsibility for all of the inequities he’s discussing. From an American perspective, lobbing volleys at Reagan, the Bushes, the Clintons, Obama, and Trump is oddly satisfying. And he does make some attempts at recommending how Western societies may consider course correcting 40 (400?) years of political trauma… but they’re largely pie in the sky ideas. Even the good ones. Sandel might just as well have said, “burn it all down and try again!” Which, fair enough. Climate change may do that for us anyway.
But I think the real value here is in recognizing the dangers of the discourse of merit and to try and work to intentionally change that conversation. Sandel seems to argue that it is not enough to fight for equality of opportunity, but that we must recognize that the end goal should be equality of condition—and that this requires not just a redistribution of wealth, but a redistribution of esteem. An escape from the emphasis on self-reliance and bootstraps and a focus on civic virtue and community. And maybe that’s enough?
At the very least, it’s a well-written and engaging book that gives the reader something to think about.
So. I really liked it, even with all of its problems. I’d recommend giving this one a read.
So Sandel does a nice job of sticking it to those in power and explaining how everyone is to blame. Cool. But that sort of begs the question: Does he offer solutions to ameliorate these growing disparities? And the answer is… kind of? He has some interesting ideas like reimagining tax systems that focus less on consumer or income taxes and aim more for taxes on things that contribute less to the real economy and social good—like a financial transaction tax. The pretty standard “obvious if you think about it even a little bit” sort of wealth redistribution ideas. He also suggests that, “We need to rethink the role of universities as arbiters of opportunity,” which, as someone who works in higher education, I couldn’t possibly agree with more. Some of his other ideas, though, don’t seem as though they would actually fix problems. For instance, he suggests admission to elite universities (like Harvard) could be by lottery for qualified students—and discusses ways that the lottery could be gamed in order to preserve issues related to diversity or other institutional concerns (like luring in wealthy donors). And this just seems… unrealistic? Like, it’s obvious that these schools don’t have objective or open admission criteria that grant equitable access to all potential students now and that they are really just self-replicating systems of privilege—but I’m not convinced that introducing an even more random luck element is the fix higher ed needs. But I also don’t have any alternative solutions, so.
Besides his not-quite-fixes, another critique of the book is Sandel’s consistent both-sidesism. He’s not wrong that the center-left abandoned class loyalties and enabled neoliberal capitalist exploitation for their own power while adopting and expanding Reagan and Thatcher’s brand of meritorious individualism and entrenching technocracy and credentialism as part of their platforms in Western democracies. And he’s not wrong that the center-right has drifted further and further right, shifting the Overton window and enabling the rise of strongman politics and neofascism the world over. But. There is a weird amount of blame that he places on the political aristocracy for driving the disaffected working class toward far right populism because they feel as though they’re being made fun of or looked down on by the elitist credentialed intelligentsia. Look, I don’t want to defend the political and economic powers that be. Sure, maybe white, uncredentialed, working-class males in America voted for Trump because they have been accused of being unintelligent or racist or whatever over the decades by the Clintons and Obamas of the world and they’re just leaning into it. Or… maybe Trump represents their beliefs? Maybe Trump empowers the ideas they hold that have been informed by the contexts of their cultural and historical pasts and socioeconomic present (along with being informed by concerted efforts from corporate interests, dark money, and propaganda networks)?
I’m just saying, let people have some agency and maybe stop making apologies for disaffected white folks? Center-left politicians (if we even want to call them that) in America and Canada and the UK and on and on have a number of sins that we can (and should!) critique without necessarily laying the blame for the rise of populism on the right at their feet. Are both sides to blame for the state of the world and the stagnation of the working-class over the last 40 years? Yes. Of course. But are they equally to blame for the world as we see it today? No. And we don’t have to try to blunt our critiques of contemporary “progressivism” with the tired “right wing populism is the fault of the elitist lefties, actually!” argument. The establishment left has problems enough as it is and the adoption of merit discourse is one of them.
But at the end of the day, Sandel is throwing enough shade at everyone that it’s obvious that every political persuasion has to bear some of the responsibility for all of the inequities he’s discussing. From an American perspective, lobbing volleys at Reagan, the Bushes, the Clintons, Obama, and Trump is oddly satisfying. And he does make some attempts at recommending how Western societies may consider course correcting 40 (400?) years of political trauma… but they’re largely pie in the sky ideas. Even the good ones. Sandel might just as well have said, “burn it all down and try again!” Which, fair enough. Climate change may do that for us anyway.
But I think the real value here is in recognizing the dangers of the discourse of merit and to try and work to intentionally change that conversation. Sandel seems to argue that it is not enough to fight for equality of opportunity, but that we must recognize that the end goal should be equality of condition—and that this requires not just a redistribution of wealth, but a redistribution of esteem. An escape from the emphasis on self-reliance and bootstraps and a focus on civic virtue and community. And maybe that’s enough?
At the very least, it’s a well-written and engaging book that gives the reader something to think about.
So. I really liked it, even with all of its problems. I’d recommend giving this one a read.