The Tyranny Of Merit Quotes

The meritocratic ideal is not a remedy for inequality; it is a justification of inequality.

Being good at making money measures neither our merit nor the value of our contribution.

For the more we think of ourselves as self-made and self-sufficient, the harder it is to learn gratitude and humility. And without these sentiments, it is hard to care for the common good.

Ungenerous to the losers and oppressive to the winners, merit becomes a tyrant.

The tyranny of merit arises from more than the rhetoric of rising. It consists in a cluster of attitudes and circumstances that, taken together, have made meritocracy toxic.

What, then, are religions if not the restraint wherewith the tyranny of the mightier sought to enslave the weaker? Motivated by that design, he dared say to him whom he claimed the right to dominate, that a God had forged the irons with which cruelty manacled him; and the latter, bestialized by his misery, indistinctly believed everything the former wished. Can religions, born of these rogueries, merit respect?

I am thinking of the everyday ways that conscientious, well-to-do parents help their kids. Even the best, most inclusive educational system would be hard pressed to equip students from poor backgrounds to compete on equal terms with children from families that bestow copious amounts of attention, resources, and connections

For why do the successful owe anything to the less-advantaged members of society? The answer to this question depends on recognizing that, for all our striving, we are not self-made and self-sufficient; finding ourselves in a society that prizes our talents is our good fortune, not our due. A lively sense of the contingency of our lot can inspire a certain humility: "There, but for the grace of God, or the accident of birth, or the mystery of fate, go I." Such humility is the beginning of the way back from the harsh ethic of success that drives us apart. It points beyond the tyranny of merit toward a less rancorous, more generous public life.

Social well-being … depends upon cohesion and solidarity. It implies the existence, not merely of opportunities to ascend, but of a high level of general culture, and a strong sense of common interests.… Individual happiness does not only require that men should be free to rise to new positions of comfort and distinction; it also requires that they should be able to lead a life of dignity and culture, whether they rise or not.4

If meritocracy is an aspiration, those who fall short can always blame the system; but if meritocracy is a fact, those who fall short are invited to blame themselves.

shifting our focus from maximizing GDP to creating a labor market conducive to the dignity of work and social cohesion.

If I am responsible for having accrued a handsome share of worldly goods—income and wealth, power and prestige—I must deserve them. Success is a sign of virtue. My affluence is my due.

The merits of rival causes are never absolute. Even in the Second World War, the Western allied struggle against fascism was compromised by its reliance upon the tyranny of Stalin to pay most of the blood price for destroying the tyranny of Hitler. Only simpletons of the political Right and Left dare to suggest that in Vietnam either side possessed a monopoly of virtue.

Few politicians speak that way today. In the decades after RFK, progressives largely abandoned the politics of community, patriotism, and the dignity of work, and offered instead the rhetoric of rising.

But a perfect meritocracy banishes all sense of gift or grace. It diminishes our capacity to see ourselves as sharing a common fate. It leaves little room for the solidarity that can arise when we reflect on the contingency of our talents and fortunes. This is what makes merit a kind of tyranny, or unjust rule.

To be sure, I am not speaking about Christian equality, whose real name is equity; but about this democratic and social equality, which is nothing but the canonization of envy and the chimera of jealous ineptitude. This equality was never anything but a mask which could not become reality without the abolition of all merit and virtue.

Micro-regulation is micro-tyranny, a slithering, serpentine network of insinuating Ceaucescu and Kim Jong-Il mini-me's. It's time for the mass rejection of their diktats. A political order that subjects you to the caprices of faceless bureaucrats or crusading "judges" merits no respect. To counter the Bureau of Compliance, we need an Alliance of Non-Compliance to help once free people roll back the regulatory state.

My conception of freedom. -- The value of a thing sometimes does not lie in that which one attains by it, but in what one pays for it -- what it costs us. I shall give an example. Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions. Their effects are known well enough: they undermine the will to power; they level mountain and valley, and call that morality; they make men small, cowardly, and hedonistic -- every time it is the herd animal that triumphs with them. Liberalism: in other words, herd-animalization. These same institutions produce quite different effects while they are still being fought for; then they really promote freedom in a powerful way. On closer inspection it is war that produces these effects, the war for liberal institutions, which, as a war, permits illiberal instincts to continue. And war educates for freedom. For what is freedom? That one has the will to assume responsibility for oneself. That one maintains the distance which separates us. That one becomes more indifferent to difficulties, hardships, privation, even to life itself. That one is prepared to sacrifice human beings for one's cause, not excluding oneself. Freedom means that the manly instincts which delight in war and victory dominate over other instincts, for example, over those of "pleasure." The human being who has become free -- and how much more the spirit who has become free -- spits on the contemptible type of well-being dreamed of by shopkeepers, Christians, cows, females, Englishmen, and other democrats. The free man is a warrior. How is freedom measured in individuals and peoples? According to the resistance which must be overcome, according to the exertion required, to remain on top. The highest type of free men should be sought where the highest resistance is constantly overcome: five steps from tyranny, close to the threshold of the danger of servitude. This is true psychologically if by "tyrants" are meant inexorable and fearful instincts that provoke the maximum of authority and discipline against themselves; most beautiful type: Julius Caesar. This is true politically too; one need only go through history. The peoples who had some value, who attained some value, never attained it under liberal institutions: it was great danger that made something of them that merits respect. Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources, our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit, and forces us to be strong. First principle: one must need to be strong -- otherwise one will never become strong. Those large hothouses for the strong -- for the strongest kind of human being that has so far been known -- the aristocratic commonwealths of the type of Rome or Venice, understood freedom exactly in the sense in which I understand it: as something one has and does not have, something one wants, something one conquers

The wealthy and powerful have rigged the system to perpetuate their privilege; the professional classes have figured out how to pass their advantages on to their children, converting the meritocracy into a hereditary aristocracy; colleges that claim to select students on merit give an edge to the sons and daughters of the wealthy and the well-connected. According to this complaint, meritocracy is a myth, a distant promise yet to be redeemed.14

There, but for the grace of God, or the accident of birth, or the mystery of fate, go I.

For white men and women aged 45–54, deaths of despair increased threefold from 1990 to 2017.9

developing and exercising their abilities in work that wins social esteem, sharing in a widely diffused culture of learning, and deliberating with their fellow citizens about public affairs.

On the levels of politics and theology, beauty is perfectly compatible with nonsense and tyranny. Which is very fortunate; for if beauty were incompatible with non­sense and tyranny, there would be precious little art in the world. The masterpieces of painting, sculpture and architecture were produced as religious or political propaganda, for the greater glory of a god, a govern­ment or a priesthood. But most kings and priests have been despotic and all religions have been riddled with superstition. Genius has been the servant of tyranny and art has advertised the merits of the local cult. Time, as it passes, separates the good art from the bad meta­physics. Can we learn to make this separation, not after the event, but while it is actually taking place? That is the question.

The tyranny of merit arises from more than the rhetoric of rising. It consists in a cluster of attitudes and circumstances that, taken together, have made meritocracy toxic. First, under conditions of rampant inequality and stalled mobility, reiterating the message that we are responsible for our fate and deserve what we get erodes solidarity and demoralizes those left behind by globalization. Second, insisting that a college degree is the primary route to a respectable job and a decent life creates a credentialist prejudice that undermines the dignity of work and demeans those who have not been to college; and third, insisting that social and political problems are best solved by highly educated, value-neutral experts is a technocratic conceit that corrupts democracy and disempowers ordinary

The emphasis—and money—placed on demonstrating “merit” on applications, rather than on nurturing a student’s potential during the college years, results in institutions that lack meaningful race and class diversity.

Of all forms of tyranny, the most odious is that which constantly robs the soul of the merit of its thoughts and deeds. It has to abdicate without having reigned. The word we are readiest to speak, the feelings we most love to express, die when we are commanded to utter them.

They resented meritocratic elites, experts, and professional classes, who had celebrated market-driven globalization, reaped the benefits, consigned working people to the discipline of foreign competition, and who seemed to identify more with global elites than with their fellow citizens.

Polybius argued that beyond their obvious military prowess, the Romans lived under a political constitution that had achieved the perfect balance between the three classical forms of government: monarchy—rule by the one; aristocracy—rule by the few; and democracy—rule by the many.22 According to Aristotelian political theory, each form of government had its merits but inevitably devolved into its most oppressive incarnation until it was overthrown. Thus a monarchy would become a tyranny, only to be overthrown by an enlightened aristocracy, which slid to repressive oligarchy until popular democracy overwhelmed the oligarchs, opening the door for anarchy, and so back to the stabilizing hand of monarchy again. Polybius believed the Romans had beaten this cycle and could thus keep growing when other cities collapsed under the shifting sands of their own inadequate political systems.23

A wealthy CEO could justify his or her advantages to a lower paid worker on a factory floor as: "I am not worthier then you nor morally deserving of the privileged position I hold. My generous compensation package is simply an incentive necessary to induce me and others like me, to develop our talents for the benefit of all. It is not your fault that you lack the talent society needs, nor is it my doing that I have such talents in abundance. This is why some of my income is taxed away to help people like you. I do not morally deserve my superior pay and position, but I am entitled to them under fair rules of social cooperation, and remember, you and I would have agreed to these rules had we thought about the matter before we knew who would land on top and whom at the bottom. So please do not resent me, my privileges make you better off than you would otherwise be, the inequality you find galling is for your own good.

It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

This morally blinkered way of conceiving merit and the public good has weakened democratic societies in several ways. The first is the most obvious: Over the past four decades, meritocratic elites have not governed very well. The elites who governed the United States from 1940 to 1980 were far more successful. They won World War II, helped rebuild Europe and Japan, strengthened the welfare state, dismantled segregation, and presided over four decades of economic growth that flowed to rich and poor alike. By contrast, the elites who have governed since have brought us four decades of stagnant wages for most workers, inequalities of income and wealth not seen since the 1920s, the Iraq War, a nineteen-year, inconclusive war in Afghanistan, financial deregulation, the financial crisis of 2008, a decaying infrastructure, the highest incarceration rate in the world, and a system of campaign finance and gerrymandered congressional districts that makes a mockery of democracy.

But beyond fairness and productivity, the liberal argument also gestured toward a third, more potent ideal implicit in the case for markets: Enabling people to compete solely on the basis of effort and talent would bring market outcomes into alignment with merit. In a society where opportunities were truly equal, markets would give people their just deserts.

According to Aristotelian political theory, each form of government had its merits but inevitably devolved into its most oppressive incarnation until it was overthrown. Thus a monarchy would become a tyranny, only to be overthrown by an enlightened aristocracy, which slid to repressive oligarchy until popular democracy overwhelmed the oligarchs, opening the door for anarchy, and so back to the stabilizing hand of monarchy again.

Is it not an offence to the weakest creature that can think at all to be compelled to do, by the will of another, anything that he would otherwise have done simply of his own accord? Of all forms of tyranny, the most odious is that which constantly robs the soul of the merit of its thoughts and deeds. It has to abdicate without having reigned. The word we are readiest to speak, the feelings we most love to express, die when we are commanded to utter them.

For Knight, this is overly flattering. Being good at making money measures neither our merit nor the value of our contribution. All the successful can honestly say is that they have managed—through some unfathomable mix of genius or guile, timing or talent, luck or pluck or grim determination—to cater effectively to the jumble of wants and desires, however weighty or frivolous, that constitute consumer demand at any given moment. Satisfying consumer demand is not valuable in itself; its value depends, case by case, on the moral status of the ends it serves. DESERVING

This is how Trump voters may have heard Hillary Clinton’s meritocratic mantra. For them, the rhetoric of rising was more insulting than inspiring. This is not because they rejected meritocratic beliefs. To the contrary: They embraced meritocracy, but believed it described the way things already worked. They did not see it as an unfinished project requiring further government action to dismantle barriers to achievement. This is partly because they feared such intervention would favor ethnic and racial minorities, thus violating rather than vindicating meritocracy as they saw it. But it is also because, having worked hard to achieve

In this way, even a fair meritocracy, one without cheating or bribery or special privileges for the wealthy, induces a mistaken impression—that we have made it on our own. The years of strenuous effort demanded of applicants to elite universities almost forces them to believe that their success is their own doing, and that if they fall short, they have no one to blame but themselves. This is a heavy burden for young people to bear. It is also corrosive of civic sensibilities. For the more we think of ourselves as self-made and self- sufficient, the harder it is to learn gratitude and humility. And without these sentiments, it is hard to care for the common good.

Contributive justice, by contrast, is not neutral about human flourishing or the best way to live. From Aristotle to the American republican tradition, from Hegel to Catholic social teaching, theories of contributive justice teach us that we are most fully human when we contribute to the common good and earn the esteem of our fellow citizens for the contributions we make. According to this tradition, the fundamental human need is to be needed by those with whom we share a common life. The dignity of work consists in exercising our abilities to answer such needs. If this is what it means to live a good life, then it is a mistake to conceive consumption as “the sole end and object of economic activity.

My conception of freedom. — The value of a thing sometimes does not lie in that which one attains by it, but in what one pays for it — what it costs us. I shall give an example. Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions. Their effects are known well enough: they undermine the will to power; they level mountain and valley, and call that morality; they make men small, cowardly, and hedonistic — every time it is the herd animal that triumphs with them. Liberalism: in other words, herd-animalization. These same institutions produce quite different effects while they are still being fought for; then they really promote freedom in a powerful way. On closer inspection it is war that produces these effects, the war for liberal institutions, which, as a war, permits illiberal instincts to continue. And war educates for freedom. For what is freedom? That one has the will to assume responsibility for oneself. That one maintains the distance which separates us. That one becomes more indifferent to difficulties, hardships, privation, even to life itself. That one is prepared to sacrifice human beings for one's cause, not excluding oneself. Freedom means that the manly instincts which delight in war and victory dominate over other instincts, for example, over those of "pleasure." The human being who has become free — and how much more the spirit who has become free — spits on the contemptible type of well-being dreamed of by shopkeepers, Christians, cows, females, Englishmen, and other democrats. The free man is a warrior. How is freedom measured in individuals and peoples? According to the resistance which must be overcome, according to the exertion required, to remain on top. The highest type of free men should be sought where the highest resistance is constantly overcome: five steps from tyranny, close to the threshold of the danger of servitude. This is true psychologically if by "tyrants" are meant inexorable and fearful instincts that provoke the maximum of authority and discipline against themselves; most beautiful type: Julius Caesar. This is true politically too; one need only go through history. The peoples who had some value, attained some value, never attained it under liberal institutions: it was great danger that made something of them that merits respect. Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources, our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit, and forces us to be strong. First principle: one must need to be strong — otherwise one will never become strong. Those large hothouses for the strong — for the strongest kind of human being that has so far been known — the aristocratic commonwealths of the type of Rome or Venice, understood freedom exactly in the sense in which I understand it: as something one has or does not have, something one wants, something one conquers.

My short-term goals are to defend and even strengthen elements of state authority which, though illegitimate in fundamental ways, are critically necessary right now to impede the dedicated efforts to "roll back" the progress that has been achieved in extending democracy and human rights. State authority is now under severe attack in the more democratic societies, but not because it conflicts with the libertarian vision. Rather the opposite: because it offers (weak) protection to some aspects of that vision. Governments have a fatal flaw: unlike the private tyrannies, the institutions of state power and authority offer to the despised public an opportunity to play some role, however limited, in managing their own affairs. That defect is intolerable to the masters, who now feel, with some justification, that changes in the international economic and political order offer the prospects of creating a kind of "utopia for the masters," with dismal prospects for most of the rest. It should be unnecessary to spell out here what I mean. The effects are all too obvious even in the rich societies, from the corridors of power to the streets, countryside, and prisons. For reasons that merit attention but that lie beyond the scope of these remarks, the rollback campaign is currently spearheaded by dominant sectors of societies in which the values under attack have been realized in some of their most advanced forms, the English-speaking world; no small irony, but no contradiction either.

That words are not things. (Identification of words with things, however, is widespread, and leads to untold misunderstanding and confusion.) That words mean nothing in themselves; they are as much symbols as x or y. That meaning in words arises from context of situation. That abstract words and terms are especially liable to spurious identification. The higher the abstraction, the greater the danger. That things have meaning to us only as they have been experienced before. “Thingumbob again.” That no two events are exactly similar. That finding relations and orders between things gives more dependable meanings than trying to deal in absolute substances and properties. Few absolute properties have been authenticated in the world outside. That mathematics is a useful language to improve knowledge and communication. That the human brain is a remarkable instrument and probably a satisfactory agent for clear communication. That to improve communication new words are not needed, but a better use of the words we have. (Structural improvements in ordinary language, however, should be made.) That the scientific method and especially the operational approach are applicable to the study and improvement of communication. (No other approach has presented credentials meriting consideration.) That the formulation of concepts upon which sane men can agree, on a given date, is a prime goal of communication. (This method is already widespread in the physical sciences and is badly needed in social affairs.) That academic philosophy and formal logic have hampered rather than advanced knowledge, and should be abandoned. That simile, metaphor, poetry, are legitimate and useful methods of communication, provided speaker and hearer are conscious that they are being employed. That the test of valid meaning is: first, survival of the individual and the species; second, enjoyment of living during the period of survival.

As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged, and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister; a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and the more earthly passions of malice and ambition kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country.

Man was made for action, and to promote by the exertion of his faculties such changes in the external circumstances both of himself and others, as may seem most favourable to the happiness of all. He must not be satisfied with indolent benevolence, nor fancy himself the friend of mankind, because in his heart he wishes well to the prosperity of the world. That he may call forth the whole vigour of his soul, and strain every nerve, in order to produce those ends which it is the purpose of his being to advance, Nature has taught him, that neither himself nor mankind can be fully satisfied with his conduct, nor bestow upon it the full measure of applause, unless he has actually produced them. He is made to know, that the praise of good intentions, without the merit of good offices, will be but of little avail to excite either the loudest acclamations of the world, or even the highest degree of self-applause. The man who has performed no single action of importance, but whose whole conversation and deportment express the justest, the noblest, and most generous sentiments, can be entitled to demand no very high reward, even though his inutility should be owing to nothing but the want of an opportunity to serve. We can still refuse it him without blame. We can still ask him, What have you done? What actual service can you produce, to entitle you to so great a recompense? We esteem you, and love you; but we owe you nothing. To reward indeed that latent virtue which has been useless only for want of an opportunity to serve, to bestow upon it those honours and preferments, which, though in some measure it may be said to deserve them, it could not with propriety have insisted upon, is the effect of the most divine benevolence. To punish, on the contrary, for the affections of the heart only, where no crime has been committed, is the most insolent and barbarous tyranny.

But that's fatalism." "The illusion which man has that his will is free is so deeply rooted that I am ready to accept it. I act as though I were a free agent. But when an action is performed it is clear that all the forces of the universe from all eternity conspired to cause it, and nothing I could do could have prevented it. It was inevitable. If it was good I can claim no merit; if it was bad I can accept no censure." "My brain reels," said Philip. "Have some whiskey," returned Cronshaw, passing over the bottle. "There's nothing like it for clearing the head. You must expect to be thick-witted if you insist upon drinking beer." Philip shook his head, and Cronshaw proceeded: "You're not a bad fellow, but you won't drink. Sobriety disturbs conversation. But when I speak of good and bad..." Philip saw he was taking up the thread of his discourse, "I speak conventionally. I attach no meaning to those words. I refuse to make a hierarchy of human actions and ascribe worthiness to some and ill-repute to others. The terms vice and virtue have no signification for me. I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of the world." "But there are one or two other people in the world," objected Philip. "I speak only for myself. I know them only as they limit my activities. Round each of them too the world turns, and each one for himself is the centre of the universe. My right over them extends only as far as my power. What I can do is the only limit of what I may do. Because we are gregarious we live in society, and society holds together by means of force, force of arms (that is the policeman) and force of public opinion (that is Mrs. Grundy). You have society on one hand and the individual on the other: each is an organism striving for self-preservation. It is might against might. I stand alone, bound to accept society and not unwilling, since in return for the taxes I pay it protects me, a weakling, against the tyranny of another stronger than I am; but I submit to its laws because I must; I do not acknowledge their justice: I do not know justice, I only know power. And when I have paid for the policeman who protects me and, if I live in a country where conscription is in force, served in the army which guards my house and land from the invader, I am quits with society: for the rest I counter its might with my wiliness. It makes laws for its self-preservation, and if I break them it imprisons or kills me: it has the might to do so and therefore the right. If I break the laws I will accept the vengeance of the state, but I will not regard it as punishment nor shall I feel myself convicted of wrong-doing. Society tempts me to its service by honours and riches and the good opinion of my fellows; but I am indifferent to their good opinion, I despise honours and I can do very well without riches." "But if everyone thought like you things would go to pieces at once." "I have nothing to do with others, I am only concerned with myself. I take advantage of the fact that the majority of mankind are led by certain rewards to do things which directly or indirectly tend to my convenience." "It seems to me an awfully selfish way of looking at things," said Philip. "But are you under the impression that men ever do anything except for selfish reasons?" (324)

The notion that “the best and the brightest” are better at governing than their less-credentialed fellow citizens is a myth born of meritocratic hubris.

Political debate is often about how to identify and characterize the facts relevant to the controversy in question.

It is not my doing that the market prizes the talents I have, or that I possess those talents in the first place.

hubris among the winners and humiliation among the losers.

Tone-deaf to the mounting resentments of those who had not shared in the bounty of globalization, they missed the mood of discontent. The populist backlash caught them by surprise.

there is one path to ultimate happiness—having money—that in turn comes from attending prestigious colleges.

by making clear what is true in any case, that those who land on top do not make it on their own but owe their good fortune to family circumstance and native gifts that are morally akin to the luck of the draw.

It is the sensibility of Ecclesiastes: “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

work, at its best, is a socially integrating activity, an arena of recognition, a way of honoring our obligation to contribute to the common good.

(Recall the richly compensated meth dealer and the modestly paid high school teacher.)

reflect a long-term and slowly unfolding loss of a way of life for the white, less educated working class.

leaving poor whites without “the comfort of knowing that someone was worse off and more despised than they were.

Among the winners, it generates hubris; among the losers, humiliation and resentment. These moral sentiments are at the heart of the populist uprising against elites. More than a protest against immigrants and outsourcing, the populist complaint is about the tyranny of merit. And the complaint is justified.

But it is also because, having worked hard to achieve a modicum of success, they had accepted the harsh verdict of the market in their own case, and were invested in it, morally and psychologically.

One is the frustration that arises when the system falls short of its meritocratic promise, when those who work hard and play by the rules are unable to advance.

The other is the despair that arises when people believe the meritocratic promise has already been fulfilled, and they have lost out.

We perceive the world in the light of our hopes and fears.

The attempt to create a total cultural environment and to silence or intimidate opponents is part of a campaign that had once seemed promising, even to those—yourself included—alarmed at the irrationality and anti-intellectuality unleashed by many of the most vocal proponents of the new fundamentalism. But concepts with some genuine merit—like “privilege,” “appropriation,” and even “microaggression”—were very rapidly weaponized, and well-intentioned discussions of “identity,” “inequality,” and “disability” became the leading edge of new efforts to label and separate the saved and the damned, the “woke” and the benighted, the victim and the oppressor. Concepts useful in careful and nuanced discussions proved strikingly “amenable to over-extension,” as the cultural historian Rochelle Gurstein put it, and ideas suitable for addressing “psychological distress” were forced into the service of efforts to “[redress] the subordination of one people by another,” yielding not significant redress but a new wave of puritanism and a culture of suspicion

Taxation is not only a way of raising revenue; it is also a way of expressing a society’s judgment about what counts as a valuable contribution to the common good.

Global supply chains, capital flows, and the cosmopolitan identities they fostered made us less reliant on our fellow citizens,

It points beyond the tyranny of merit toward a less rancorous, more generous public life.

Construing populist protest as either malevolent or misdirected absolves governing elites of responsibility for creating the conditions that have eroded the dignity of work and left many feeling disrespected and disempowered. The diminished economic and cultural status of working people in recent decades is not the result of inexorable forces; it is the result of the way mainstream political parties and elites have governed.

In an unequal society, those who land on top want to believe their success is morally justified. In a meritocratic society, this means the winners must believe they have earned their success through their own talent and hard work.

For why do the successful owe anything to the less advantaged members of society? The answer to this question depends on recognizing that for all our striving, we are not self-made and self-sufficient. Finding ourselves in a society that prices our talents is our good fortune, not our due. A lively sense of the contingency of our lot can inspire a certain humility.

But to write off white working-class anger as nothing more than racism is intellectual comfort food, and it is dangerous.

Hegel argued that the capitalist organization of work emerging in his time could be ethically justified only on two conditions, described succinctly by Honneth: “first, it must provide a minimum wage; second, it must give all work activities a shape that reveals them to be a contribution to the common good.”47

In short, Hegel argued that the capitalist organization of work emerging in his time could be ethically justified only on two conditions, described succinctly by Honneth: “first, it must provide a minimum wage; second, it must give all work activities a shape that reveals them to be a contribution to the common good.”47

Enabling everyone to compete on equal terms was not only compatible with a market society but a way to fulfill its underlying principles. Two such principles were fairness and productivity. Eliminating discrimination and expanding opportunity would make markets more fair, and enlisting a wider pool of talent would make markets more productive.

Larry Summers, an economic advisor to President Obama, put it bluntly: “One of the challenges in our society is that the truth is kind of a disequalizer.

This was the point of the rhetoric of rising. If barriers to achievement could be dismantled, then everyone would have an equal chance to succeed; regardless of race or class or gender, people could rise as far as their talent and effort would take them. And if opportunities were truly equal, those who rose highest could be said to deserve their success and the rewards it brings. This was the meritocratic promise. It was not a promise of greater equality, but a promise of greater and fairer mobility

Here then was the basic argument of liberal and progressive politics in the decades leading up to Brexit, Trump, and the populist revolt: The global economy, as if a fact of nature, had somehow come upon us and was here to stay. The central political question was not how to reconfigure it but how to adapt to it, and how to alleviate its devastating effect on the wages and job prospects of workers outside the charmed circle of the elite professions.

The “less educated are seen as responsible and blameworthy for their situation, even by the less-educated themselves.

For Calvin and the Puritans, “everyone was equally base in the sight of God.” Since no one was deserving, salvation had to depend on God’s grace.

Frank’s mention of a “moral judgment handed down by the successful” touched on something important. Encouraging more people to go to college is a good thing. Making college more accessible to those of modest means is even better. But as a solution to inequality and the plight of workers who lost out in the decades of globalization, the single-minded focus on education had a damaging side effect: eroding the social esteem accorded those who had not gone to college.

Trump supporters resented liberals’ rhetoric of rising, not because they rejected meritocracy, but because they believed it described the prevailing social order. They had submitted to its discipline, had accepted the hard judgment it pronounced on their own merits, and believed others should do the same.

barely

Of those born poor in America, few make it to the top. In fact, most do not even make it to the middle class. Studies of upward mobility typically divide the income ladder into five rungs. Of those born on the bottom rung, only around 4 to 7 percent rise to the top, and only about a third reach the middle rung or higher. Although the exact numbers vary from one study to the next, very few Americans live out the “rags to riches” story celebrated in the American dream.37

Meritocratic sorting taught us that our success is our own doing, and so eroded our sense of indebtedness.

Em condições de desigualdade desenfreada e de mobilidade social estagnada, a repetição da mensagem de que somos responsáveis pelo nosso destino e que merecemos o que recebemos corrói a solidariedade e desmoraliza aqueles que foram deixados para trás pela globalização.

From Aristotle to the American republican tradition, from Hegel to Catholic social teaching, theories of contributive justice teach us that we are most fully human when we contribute to the common good and earn the esteem of our fellow citizens for the contributions we make.

O mérito exerce, em simultâneo, a sua tirania em duas direções. Entre aqueles que acabam por chegar ao topo, induz um perfeccionismo debilitante e uma arrogância meritocrática que luta para ocultar uma auto-estima fragilidade. Entre aqueles que exclui, impõe um desmoralizaste, e mesmo humilhante, sentimento de fracasso.

But differences of talent are as morally arbitrary as differences of class.23

This would turn the American dream into what Plato described as a “noble lie,” a belief that, though untrue, sustains civic harmony by inducing citizens to accept certain inequalities as legitimate.

The tyranny of merit arises from more than the rhetoric of rising. It consists in a cluster of attitudes and circumstances that, taken together, have made meritocracy toxic. First, under conditions of rampant inequality and stalled mobility, reiterating the message that we are responsible for our fate and deserve what we get erodes solidarity and demoralizes those left behind by globalization. Second, insisting that a college degree is the primary route to a respectable job and a decent life creates a credentialist prejudice that undermines the dignity of work and demeans those who have not been to college; and third, insisting that social and political problems are best solved by highly educated, value-neutral experts is a technocratic conceit that corrupts democracy and disempowers ordinary citizens.

The United States, we tell ourselves, can afford to worry less about inequality than the class-bound societies of Europe because here, it is possible to rise. Seventy percent of Americans believe the poor can make it out of poverty on their own, while only 35 percent of Europeans think so. This faith in mobility may explain why the U.S. has a less-generous welfare state than most major European countries.

The United States, we tell ourselves, can afford to worry less about inequality than the class-bound societies of Europe because here, it is possible to rise. Seventy percent of Americans believe the poor can make it out of poverty on their own, while only 35 percent of Europeans think so. This faith in mobility may explain why the U.S. has a less-generous welfare state than most major European countries.

The authors conclude that well-educated elites are no less biased than less-educated folk; “it is rather that [their] targets of prejudice are different.” Moreover, the elites are unembarrassed by their prejudice.They may denounce racism and sexism but are unapologetic about their negative attitudes toward the less-educated. Second, the reason for this lack of embarrassment relates to the meritocratic emphasis on individual responsibility. Elites dislike those with lesser educations more than they dislike poor people or members of the working class, because they consider poverty and class status to be, at least in part, due to factors beyond one’s control. By contrast, they consider low educational achievement to represent a failure of individual effort, and therefore the fault of those who do not make it to college. “Compared to the working class, the less-educated were perceived to be more responsible and more blameworthy, they elicited more anger, and they were liked less.” Third, this adverse judgment of the less-educated is not unique to elites;it is shared by the less-educated respondents themselves. This shows how deeply the meritocratic view of achievement has penetrated social life and how demoralizing it can be for those who do not go to college. “There are no indications that less educated people resist the negative attributions made about them.” To the contrary, they “even seem to internalize” these adverse judgments. The “less educated are seen as responsible and blameworthy for their situation, even by the less-educated themselves.

but the broader belief that market mechanisms are the primary instruments for achieving the public good. This way of thinking about politics is technocratic in the sense that it drains public discourse of substantive moral argument and treats ideologically contestable questions as if they were matters of economic efficiency, the province of experts.

They typically diagnose the discontent in one of two ways: As animus against immigrants and racial and ethnic minorities or as anxiety in the face of globalization and technological change. Both diagnoses miss something important.

The authors conclude that well-educated elites are no less biased than less-educated folk; “it is rather that [their] targets of prejudice are different.” Moreover, the elites are unembarrassed by their prejudice.They may denounce racism and sexism but are unapologetic about their negative attitudes toward the less-educated. Second, the reason for this lack of embarrassment relates to the meritocratic emphasis on individual responsibility. Elites dislike those with lesser educations more than they dislike poor people or members of the working class, because they consider poverty and class status to be, at least in part, due to factors beyond one’s control. By contrast, they consider low educational achievement to represent a failure of individual effort, and therefore the fault of those who do not make it to college. “Compared to the working class, the less-educated were perceived to be more responsible and more blameworthy, they elicited more anger, and they were liked less.”42Third, this adverse judgment of the less-educated is not unique to elites;it is shared by the less-educated respondents themselves. This shows how deeply the meritocratic view of achievement has penetrated social life and how demoralizing it can be for those who do not go to college. “There are no indications that less educated people resist the negative attributions made about them.” To the contrary, they “even seem to internalize” these adverse judgments. The “less educated are seen as responsible and blameworthy for their situation, even by the less-educated themselves.

The fortunate [person] is seldom satisfied with the fact of being fortunate,” Max Weber observed. “Beyond this, he needs to know that he has a right to his good fortune. He wants to be convinced that he ‘deserves’ it, and above all, that he deserves it in comparison with others. He wishes to be allowed the belief that the less fortunate also merely experience [their] due.

but also about social esteem.

The diminished economic and cultural status of working people in recent decades is not the result of inexorable forces; it is the result of the way mainstream political parties and elites have governed.

At the heart of this failure is the way mainstream parties conceived and carried out the project of globalization over the past four decades. Two aspects of this project gave rise to the conditions that fuel populist protest. One is its technocratic way of conceiving the public good; the other is its meritocratic way of defining winners and losers.

But our disagreements about merit are not only about fairness. They are also about how we define success and failure, winning and losing—and about the attitudes the winners should hold toward those less successful than themselves. These are highly charged questions, and we try to avoid them until they force themselves upon us.

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