The Tyranny of Merit

Michael J. Sandel

If I go by my blog posts, it was in 2004 that the thought first occurred to me – “humankind protests against all kinds of disparities – race, sex, age etc..but aren’t institutions like IIMs promoting discrimination based on intellectual aptitude“. I did not know the word meritocracy then (coined by Michael Young in 1958, who saw it as a dystopian concept), but since 2015, the word and the world it has created has been appearing in many of my posts. That’s why this was a book I was looking forward to. And it didn’t disappoint. Despite an American context, it peels the layers, and the insights are universal. 

Meritocracy began as a remedy, and its earliest proponents probably understood that while it may not be able to bring about equality, it could help create mobility across the levels of society. Unfortunately, it has increasingly moved away from that purpose too, and has now created a system where those are already privileged have a disproportionate advantage over those who do not. And no, education, especially the way it is now, is not a solution. And anyway, mobility can no longer compensate for inequality. Meritocracy was a means to an end, but I can’t help but think that its progress is mirroring that of a related “inter-subjective” concept – money, which is now an end in itself. 

The author begins with the recent success of populist movements – Trump, Brexit – some of which are a threat to democracy, and provides his perspectives on why they were able to rally people. The answers lie beyond the usual suspects – backlash against racial, ethnic, gender diversity, and the dislocation caused by globalisation. In short, a technocratic way of conceiving public good, and meritocratic way of defining winners and losers. The former removes moral arguments from public discourse and treats them as matters of economic efficiency. The technocratic version of meritocracy de-links merit and moral judgment, by defining the the common good only in economic terms, and equating it to GDP. The latter creates hubris among the winners by deeply embedding the thought that their success is all their own doing without luck or privilege playing any part, and humiliation and resentment among the losers, by making it seem that their status is purely their fault. The author does an excellent job of highlighting this change through the American political rhetoric, and the “you deserve it” narrative in everyday life. 

For the longest while, education was the ticket to the “American Dream”, but this has created damage on multiple counts. It has eroded the self esteem of those who have not gone to college, devaluing their contributions, and making it seem the sole reason for their lot in life. It has also promoted credentialism, the “last acceptable prejudice”, making a college degree a pre-condition for dignified work. “Smart vs dumb” began to replace “just vs unjust” and “right vs wrong” in public discourse and policy. Democratic institutions too became the exclusive preserve of the credentialed class (in the West) making it less representative. The author shows how the support base of various parties have changed over decades, alienating the working class and adding to polarisation. 

There is a fantastic section on whether we deserve our talents, or are responsible for the value that society happens to place on them. While he acknowledges the effort involved in success, there really is no question on the importance of talent in the overall equation. Another part that really proved to me how I was conditioned to accept meritocracy was the exploration of free-market liberalism and welfare state liberalism’s alternatives to meritocracy. In the first, the author quotes Friedrich A Hayek, when pointing out that “Market outcomes have nothing to do with rewarding merit. Merit involves a moral judgement about what people deserve, whereas value is simply a measure of what consumers are willing to pay for the goods and services sellers have to offer“. In the second, he quotes John Rawls, “If people competed on a truly level playing field, the winners would be those endowed with the greatest talent. But differences of talent are morally arbitrary as differences of class“. Later in “Success Ethics”, he uses Frank Knight’s “..meeting market demand is not necessarily the same thing as making a truly valuable contribution to society.” Also useful was the nuance between deserving and entitled, and the rabbit hole of moral thinking it opens up. The author also provides recommendations on how we can attempt to fix this tyranny – in the domains of education and economics. 

Why is all this important? Technology is making more and more jobs extinct, and my generation is already feeling the pain. Beyond the economic aspects, work also makes huge contributions to meaning, dignity, and does its share of removing our fear of becoming obsolete and irrelevant. Contributive justice, as opposed to the distributive justice that both sides of the political spectrum are attempting to achieve. To quote R.H.Tawney, “Social well-being… depends upon cohesion and solidarity…Individual happiness does not only require that men should be free to rise to new positions of comfort and distinctions; it also requires that they should be able to lead a life of dignity and culture, whether they rise or not.” By promoting meritocracy and free-market evaluations of our contributions, we are increasingly removing that agency from a human’s life.