Michael Sandel's new book, The Tyranny of Merit, is not about France- which has a meritocratic governing class and which has always fetishized the notion of 'careers open to talent'- it is about America, a country, where, notoriously, Money matters, looks matter, and folksy stupidity can get you all the way to the top of the greasy pole. Merit does not matter. Achievement may be, but seldom is, based on merit. It has its own aura, a glamour, a secular type of Grace or Election, which has a kairotic, a 'timely', aspect. There is the man of the moment- and that moment may be quite prolonged- then that moment ends and 'there are no second acts in American lives'. Instead there are ghosts- decaying ectoplasm, to be more precise- or ghastly wax works which serve to remind that merit is always meretricious, fame, a wasting asset.
Democracy is about many heads being better than one. The Condorcet Jury theorem is an argument against merit of a cognitive type providing substantive solutions. But Democracy has no teleology. It is not a means to an end. It is the game, not the outcome.
Sandel takes a different view. He thinks Democracy is a mechanism designed to equalize outcomes. But there is little evidence that, absent the looming shadow of total war, Democracies are concerned with Equality or Fraternity or even Liberty.
Sandel's publisher claims-
These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favour of the already fortunate.
When was this not the case? If the 'fortunate' are rational, they will pursue a 'regret minimizing' strategy such that they have more, not less, hedges of various types. This means the odds get stacked more in their favor. However, because of Knightian Uncertainty, their hedges may be ineffectual and have adverse hysteresis effects.
Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the promise that "you can make it if you try".
But so does rapid social mobility and diminished inequality which proves you can make it even if you don't try.
And the consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fuelled populist protest, with the triumph of Brexit and election of Donald Trump.
Brexit was about a power struggle within the Tory Party. Labour was not able to take advantage of this because the utterly useless Jeremy Corbyn had been elected Leader. But why did this happen? It was because the previous leader had been a chum of people like Sandel. People in London, myself included, foolishly assumed that the EU was actually helping the 'depressed' regions. But the people living there knew that EU projects were white elephants. We honestly didn't know that British people were rational. They wanted a lower real exchange rate and a lax monetary policy. Oddly, older people- who would take a hit to their wealth- voted in the interests of their grandkids. This was pure Price equation kin selective altruism.
It makes sense for Democracies to turn against social mobility if immigrants will leapfrog over voters.
Trump's election, with hindsight, was about Race. At any rate, his re-election- which, from the economic point of view, seems a mathematical impossibility- will represent a Racial revolt- not one against Inequality.
Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the polarized politics of our time, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalisation and rising inequality.
Surely, this is not the argument currently being made? Will White people feel empathy for the victims of Police brutality- even if they are black males of imposing physiques? Or will the anti-fa nutters provoke a 'Law & Order' backlash? I think video footage of people being knelt on or shot in the back has caused 'empathy' to prevail over stereotypes of well built Black Men as always having a gun up their keyster which they are milliseconds away from drawing upon our boys in blue. On the other hand, I may be wrong. Kyle Rittenhouse too may attract sympathy.
Obama did speak of the manner in which the market has concentrated wealth in a manner unrelated to contribution. But what did he do about it? It appears that this concentration of wealth bids down the price of 'unicorn' tech start-ups. In other words there is redistribution within a cognitive elite. This does not affect the rest of us.
Sandel's book appears to have its roots in an argument with a Tea Party which no longer exists. Race, not Wealth, is the issue now.
Sandel highlights the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind.
I think 'winners' feel they are being rewarded for risk taking- in particular the risk they took that the boring and repetitive tasks to which they sacrificed their youth would go largely unrewarded.
He offers an alternative way of thinking about success - more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility, and more hospitable to a politics of the common good.
So do I. Instead of thinking of your success as a reward for something you did, why not consider it as a reminder from God that you should transfer all your money to my Bank Account? Also, could you come round and do the washing up? I simply can't be arsed.
Perhaps Sandel means that the meritorious are a 'community'- a Gemeinschaft- whose norms shape them in some occult manner. They could become tyrants over Society- the wider Gesellschaft- which is what Magneto wants, or else they could serve that Community humbly in the manner prescribed by Professor Charles Francis Xavier.
This is a matter of great concern to me personally. As readers of my blog will know, I have spent the last twenty years sculpting my physique into an amorphous blob while acquiring marvellous twerking skills. Any day now, my Beyonce impersonation on Tik Tok will go viral. Next stop, Hollywood. Then my own talk-show. I'll be bigger than Oprah. I'll have joined the Meritocratic Community. Will this change me? Probably. But how it will change me is not predictable. It is not the case that there is a Gemeinschaft of Merit such that norms are shared. Rather there is antagonomic competition between members of the elite. Expected Preference diversity is likely to be greater than for Society at large because there is less 'channelization' than where the Law of Large numbers obtains.
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