The tyranny of merit

What accounts for our polarized public life, and how can we begin to heal it? Political philosopher Michael Sandel offers a surprising answer: those who have flourished need to look in the mirror. He explores how "meritocratic hubris" leads many to believe their success is their own doing and to look down on those who haven't made it, provoking resentment and inflaming the divide between "winners" and "losers" in the new economy. Hear why we need to reconsider the meaning of success and recognize the role of luck in order to create a less rancorous, more generous civic life.

Here's a question we should all be asking:

What went wrong?

Not just with the pandemic

but with our civic life.

What brought us to this polarized,
rancorous political moment?

In recent decades,

the divide between winners and losers
has been deepening,

poisoning our politics,

setting us apart.

This divide is partly about inequality.

But it's also about the attitudes
toward winning and losing

that have come with it.

Those who landed on top

came to believe that their success
was their own doing,

a measure of their merit,

and that those who lost out
had no one to blame but themselves.

This way of thinking about success

arises from a seemingly
attractive principle.

If everyone has an equal chance,

the winners deserve their winnings.

This is the heart
of the meritocratic ideal.

In practice, of course, we fall far short.

Not everybody has an equal chance to rise.

Children born to poor families
tend to stay poor when they grow up.

Affluent parents are able to pass
their advantages onto their kids.

At Ivy League universities, for example,

there are more students
from the top one percent

than from the entire bottom half
of the country combined.

But the problem isn't only
that we fail to live up

to the meritocratic
principles we proclaim.

The ideal itself is flawed.

It has a dark side.

Meritocracy is corrosive
of the common good.

It leads to hubris among the winners

and humiliation among those who lose out.

It encourages the successful
to inhale too deeply of their success,

to forget the luck and good fortune
that helped them on their way.

And it leads them to look down
on those less fortunate,

less credentialed than themselves.

This matters for politics.

One of the most potent sources
of the populous backlash

is the sense among many working people
that elites look down on them.

It's a legitimate complaint.

Even as globalization
brought deepening inequality

and stagnant wages,

its proponents offered workers
some bracing advice.

"If you want to compete and win
in the global economy,

go to college."

"What you earn depends on what you learn."

"You can make it if you try."

These elites miss the insult
implicit in this advice.

If you don't go to college,

if you don't flourish in the new economy,

your failure is your fault.

That's the implication.

It's no wonder many working people
turned against meritocratic elites.

So what should we do?

We need to rethink three aspects
of our civic life.

The role of college,

the dignity of work

and the meaning of success.

We should begin by rethinking
the role of universities

as arbiters of opportunity.

For those of us who spend our days
in the company of the credentialed,

it's easy to forget a simple fact:

Most people don't have
a four-year college degree.

In fact, nearly two-thirds
of Americans don't.

So it is folly to create an economy

that makes a university diploma
a necessary condition

of dignified work and a decent life.

Encouraging people to go
to college is a good thing.

Broadening access
for those who can't afford it

is even better.

But this is not a solution to inequality.

We should focus less on arming people
for meritocratic combat,

and focus more on making life better

for people who lack a diploma

but who make essential
contributions to our society.

We should renew the dignity of work

and place it at the center
of our politics.

We should remember that work
is not only about making a living,

it's also about contributing
to the common good

and winning recognition for doing so.

Robert F. Kennedy put it well
half a century ago.

Fellowship, community, shared patriotism.

These essential values do not come

from just buying and consuming
goods together.

They come from dignified employment,

at decent pay.

The kind of employment
that enables us to say,

"I helped to build this country.

I am a participant
in its great public ventures."

This civic sentiment

is largely missing
from our public life today.

We often assume that the money people make

is the measure of their contribution
to the common good.

But this is a mistake.

Martin Luther King Jr. explained why.

Reflecting on a strike
by sanitation workers

in Memphis, Tennessee,

shortly before he was assassinated,

King said,

"The person who picks up our garbage
is, in the final analysis,

as significant as the physician,

for if he doesn't do his job,

diseases are rampant.

All labor has dignity."

Today's pandemic makes this clear.

It reveals how deeply we rely

on workers we often overlook.

Delivery workers,

maintenance workers,

grocery store clerks,

warehouse workers,

truckers,

nurse assistants,

childcare workers,

home health care providers.

These are not the best-paid
or most honored workers.

But now, we see them as essential workers.

This is a moment for a public debate

about how to bring their pay
and recognition

into better alignment
with the importance of their work.

It is also time for a moral,
even spiritual, turning,

questioning our meritocratic hubris.

Do I morally deserve the talents
that enable me to flourish?

Is it my doing

that I live in a society
that prizes the talents

I happen to have?

Or is that my good luck?

Insisting that my success is my due

makes it hard to see myself
in other people's shoes.

Appreciating the role of luck in life

can prompt a certain humility.

There but for the accident of birth,
or the grace of God,

or the mystery of fate,

go I.

This spirit of humility

is the civic virtue we need now.

It's the beginning of a way back

from the harsh ethic of success
that drives us apart.

It points us beyond the tyranny of merit

to a less rancorous,
more generous public life.