The Tyranny of Merit

 

Book Review

The Tyranny of Merit

Author: Michael J Sandel

Merit is not always right. It generates winners and losers and often creates hubris among the winners and resentment among the losers. Moreover, there is something immoral about handing over the world to a group of people who possess certain qualities (merits) just by luck.

Michael Sandel is a political philosopher at Harvard University and author of many books. His latest book, The Tyranny of Merit [2020], is an incisive critique of meritocracy.

Our world places much premium on merit. Students are admitted to premier institutions on the basis of their merit which is assessed by highly challenging tests. Jobs are allotted also on the basis of merit. Merit is important, no doubt. It ensures efficiency and fairness. Those who are more capable should be given greater responsibilities. It also promotes aspiration and individual freedom (freedom to forge one’s own destiny). It is also morally comforting: we feel that we get what we deserve. Fine enough. But meritocracy has its dark side too.

Sandel argues that meritocracy is not a remedy for inequality but a justification for inequality. It is not much different from aristocracy which justified and sustained inequality on the basis of birth. You are born into a particular family without your choice or knowledge and that accident determines your fate: that is aristocracy. If you are born rich, you are a winner in that system. Otherwise you are a goner. You have no choice.

Meritocracy gives us the illusion of choice. If you work hard, you can make it: meritocracy exhorts. Really? Sandel doesn’t agree. He thinks that the role of effort is inflated in meritocracy. Your talents matter more, much more. And your talents are not your choice. Your talents are your luck. Letting luck determine one’s destiny is no better than letting the accident of birth do it.

Sandel gives detailed statistical and other researched data to show how meritocracy has led to credentialism. Credentialism is belief or reliance on academic or other formal qualifications as the best measure of a person’s intelligence or ability to do a particular job. Many American Presidents like Clinton and Obama emphasised on the importance of education in forging one’s destiny. Sandel argues that this focus on education is not fair. It shifts the blame saying: “Inequality is not a failure of the system; it is a failure of you.”

This blame-shifting engenders many severe problems the foremost of which is self-hatred or loss of self-esteem. It is the resentment of such people who felt left out because of insufficient educational qualifications that led to the victory of Donald Trump as President and to Brexit, argues Sandel. He has the statistics too to prove his point.

Educational qualification needn’t matter so much, however. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee was an Oxford graduate. But his foreign secretary Ernest Bevin had left school at the age of 11. The leader of the House of Commons at that time, Herbert Morrison, did not have education beyond the age of 14. Aneurin Bevan, health minister, left school at 13 and worked as a miner.

This is not to discredit education, of course. Education is important. But there are other equally important matters too. The world should belong to everyone, even the less gifted. And the handicapped. And the disabled. And… That’s important too.

Sandel shows us that even academic scores have a correlation with wealth. “The higher your family income, the higher your SAT score,” he puts it as bluntly as that. There are people who pay as much as $1000 per hour for one-to-one tutoring for SAT. Academics is a billion-dollar industry. Therefore, education is not all about the intellect.

Meritocracy is not as much about merit as we pretend. Many other factors are at play. Your success in a meritocratic system is not as much a result of your own effort as you imagine. There are many more talented people out there who don’t get the opportunities you got.

If the successful people internalise that fact – that they are not all self-made winners – half the problem may be solved. After all, changes begin from attitudes. If I know that I am here as a winner because of sheer good fortune, I will be more concerned about my fellow human beings. That concern can make a lot of difference to the world.

This is an excellent book that deserves to be read by all the winners and policy makers. Almost all the examples and research data come from America.  But the vision is universal.

 

PS. Thanks to Jose Maliekal, professor of philosophy, author of Standstill Utopias and a good friend for sending me a free digital copy of this book.