![]() Sandel’s concluding response anchors what we hope will be a generative contribution to an ongoing conversation. The commentators offer their observations-provided in the order addressed by Sandel's response. ![]() ![]() In the symposium that follows, Sandel describes his project with the critiques he had read in mind. The American Journal of Law and Equality elicited comments on Sandel’s book from a wide range of scholars and shared their reactions with him. The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?, a recent book by Michael Sandel, who is one of the world’s leading political philosophers, affords both illumination and provocation. But Sandel’s tentative suggestions for remedying the harms of meritocracy focus far too much on liberal elites, while failing to address the much more significant ways in which business elites have harmed workers. He highlights the hubris a meritocracy fosters among the winners and the indignities it inflicts on those left behind. As a critique of meritocracy and an explanation of today’s populist resentment toward educated elites, The Tyranny of Merit is a compelling book. Sandel, the world’s most relevant living philosopher ( Newsweek ), diagnoses our political moment by seeking out its moral underpinnings. According to one use of the word in the Oxford English Dictionary, a meritocracy is a society in which “everyone with skill and imagination may aspire to reach the highest level.” 1 According to one definition, a meritocracy is a society dominated by “a ruling or influential class of educated or skilled people.” 2 This moment of deep unease about fundamental precepts undergirding Western liberal democracies has witnessed an outpouring of writings about meritocracy and its discontents. In The Tyranny of Merit, a searing critique of contemporary public discourse, Michael J. But “meritocracy” can mean strikingly different things and thus prompt dramatically different assessments. In a time of easy rhetoric and thoughtless tribalism, this provocative book is a must-read for anyone who still cares about the common good. They contrast competition open to talent favorably to hierarchies determined by attachments to inherited social status. Accessible and profound, The Tyranny of Merit is a revelatory assessment of pervasive unfairness in our society, driven in part by a nave and myopic reliance on the notion of merit. Many observers see meritocracy as deeply equalitarian. This extract from The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel (Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020), is part of a series in which OECD experts and thought leaders from around the world and all parts of society address the COVID-19 crisis, discussing and developing solutions now and for the future.
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