The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?

22 September 2022| A world-renowned philosopher explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good? Michael Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgment it imposes on those left behind. 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 solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good.
Michael Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard University. Sandel’s latest book, The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?, was named a best book of the year by The Guardian, Bloomberg, New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, Le Point (Paris), and New Weekly (Beijing). He has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Oxford, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Professor Sandel received the Edgar de Picciotto International Prize after Saskia Sassen, Joan Wallach Scott, Amartya Sen, Saul Friedländer, and Paul Krugman. This Prize awarded every two years was created as a tribute and token of thanks to the late Edgar de Picciotto whose generous donation enabled the Institute to finance a considerable part of the Edgar and Danièle de Picciotto Student House.
This lecture was moderated by Director Marie-Laure Salles.

[@JeffreyWallk]

We elect / select people to serve NOT lead. This notion of leadership has created the huberous we have today. Servitude helps instill the right attitude and helps focus measurement on outcomes

[@kidssayso1169]

Thank you for an very enlightening speech!

[@SnakeAndTurtleQigong]

Thanks for sharing!

[@gnurenga]

NEET is a good example of inequality in India. People who have money get training from private institutes and score in NEET. Academic alone can't help to get a pass in NEET.

[@kidssayso1169]

About social media , without it, I will not be able to enjoy or afford the great presentation and all the super Harvard courses you taught. Everything has pros and cons!. I will not be able to see some of the other news ( fake or truth) from all over the world.

[@EsquireR]

problem is algorithms being a blackbox (for the sake to avoid manipulation i guess), like in YT i found this just because of watching Sandel lecture before, but would get stuck in a different loops in Meta recommendations swaying me far away from educational content. And we can't conciously choose where to focus such recommendations (only blacklisting offensive topics, which is too blunt)

[@Paseosinperro]

14:30 to skip the introduction

[@stevegarrett2366]

I and 5 of my close friends were raised on working class, low income council housing estates, myself and my best friend came from single parents and we all left school with average qualifications. Yet all of us through meritocracy and hard work have all done well for ourselves and have very comfortable and financially secure lives and families, how did we mange that.

[@jakobdonskov]

What do you take this anecdotal evidence to support? Sandel didn't argue that social advancement is impossible in a meritocracy. Quite the contrary! The problem is that those who do make it often fail to recognize the role of luck in their advancement and they tend to assume that those who don't make it only have themselves to blame. These tendencies are generated by the meritocracy. That's the argument.

[@edvaca8419]

The hubris in your comment just serves to support Sandel’s thesis.

[@EmpathyArts23]

There are certain types of trust funds that uphold this moral principle.

[@libahopeson1296]

Is the argument the tyranny of merit better than merit itself?

[@paulwarren796]

MERITOCRACY SHOULD ALSO INCLUDE EXPLANATIONS ABOUT STALLED SOCIAL MOBILITY , BRAINCELL LOSS & BRAIN DAMAGE BEING ATTRIBUTED TO HAVING TO WATCH TOO MANY COMMERCIALS .

[@virnamisra1657]

Kindly arrange for the entire wipe out

[@darakaytv7754]

Very useful speech 👏🏽👍🏽👍🏽

[@murraylove]

The prosperous among us, for WHATEVER reason - luck, talent, work, innovativeness, wealth, class, family, inheritance, holiness, strength, power, persuasiveness, contacts, success, charisma, good-deals, mysticism, religion, race, and so forth have ALWAYS claimed to deserve their prosperity and to demean those who don't share their status. Meritocracy is subject to the same forces. It was ever thus. But at least merit can be measured - albeit subject to many different evolving factors, needs, opportunities, zeitgeists etc. Not to mention 'market forces' which in the broadest sense emerge in any system including anarchy! I don't think this guy has any plan to improve meritocracy. I realise it was coined as a derogatory term. But we have found new ways to value merit as a basis for distributing roles within society. As others have said, the process of meritocracy is about getting the most effective people in the most appropriate and important careers. It is not (necessarily) about who gets the goodies of life! If it's about 'winning it's not meritocracy. Anything with cracy on the end of it implies a duty to manage the society lived among. Democracy is failing because the demos at the beginning of the word isn't pulling its weight. They leave it to others and then complain they're not getting what they expect! They need to get politically active and to do some hard thinking about what is going on. They miss the days of working class prosperity but have failed to maintain the mass political parties and unions and social capital that underlay that prosperity. They think that a strongman will fix things. I honestly don't know why this guy gets so much attention. There is so much to be discussed about a far better meritocracy, but all he does is itemise shortcomings. Enough for now.

[@vladdumitrica849]

Countries with parliaments are in fact oligarchies (few lead). In order to be a true democracy, the decisions of the Parliament should be submitted to the approval of the citizens. The democratic aspect is a side effect in societies where economies have a strong competitive aspect, where the interests of those who hold economic power in society are divergent. Thus, those with money, and implicitly with political power in society, are supervising each other so that none of them have undeserved advantages due to politics. Because of this, countries with large mineral resources, like Russia and Venezuela (their share in GDP is large), do not have democratic aspects, because a small group of people can exploit these resources in their own interest. In poor countries, the main resource exploited may even be the state budget, as they have converging interests in benefiting, in their own interest, from this resource. This is what is observed in Romania, Bulgaria, when, no matter which party comes to power, the result is the same. The solution is modern direct democracy in which every citizen can vote, whenever he wants, over the head of the parliamentarian who represents him. He can even dismiss him if most of his voters consider that their interests are not right represented

[@kidssayso1169]

Human nature is greed and selfish and very diverse self interest. Have a voting system does not solve the fundamental Issues if it is merely a format. I would not even confuse voting system is equal to true democracy. You are assuming everyone vote for true common good and have same level of morale standard.

[@jorgeguerrapires]

Nice talk, thanks!

[@camilla_myrrha]

🙏🏼💫💕

[@peteresk6649]

i support value

[@HermesNautico]

18:20 - "There are two problems with meritocracy: one, is that we fall short at it, we don't live up to the meritocratic principles that we profess, [...], ". Inequality vs. Mobility. "We don't have to worry so much about inequality." Social mobility rates are not that impressive in the United States. 21:00 - Two: "The ideal itself is flawed. It flaws for three reasons."

[@northernsupernova1]

Lower tax on employment yes that is importatn!

[@tomfreemanorourke1519]

Being 70, lifelong learning, understanding, observation, experience, re-examination 24/7 365. Over the past 50 years I saw the shifting of globalised geopolitical hegemony from west to east and back to the west up until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of the Chinese power House at the return of Hon Kong that frightened the western bloc unprecedently, and since the onset of the 80's and the financialising of all governance in the developed world that grew exponentially through the 80's and evolved into a globalisation of bourgeois democracies through the 90's and into the new millennium has now become too big to fail, which was proven beyond doubt in 2008. There is no turning back for those who believe strongly in what they do, no education on what ever level one aspires to will change it without diabolical consequences. The Chinese and the Russians see the plight of the NATO alliance and its influences becoming more warlike and no education system or governance has the vision to recognise the importance of this rubicon of global hubris that will not be crossed without doing great harm to the human race. All of us are conscious cognosentient beings that inhabit a fragile existence, the earth does not recognise us as important and worthy of rescue, the earth will see us end and not blink or waver from its perpetuity. What to do about this dilemma? Don't ask a human. Love always.

[@user-sf6bj4ug8z]

Buona fortuna

[@franciscartmell8047]

The companies which pay Federer for endorsing their products think that he is worth the money they pay him.

[@sherbear8286]

Why try to put a square peg in a round hole? Individuals are all different and will never fit into an “equity” framework.

[@jetblack8250]

I think he already affirms that in his argument…

[@peteresk6649]

that piece

[@edblarney9456]

Yes, the meritocracy creates a hubris but it's still a meritocracy.

[@PerkpopperDotcom-qu3hk]

Is this really all you got? Now I know what it’s like when my wife talks to me

[@bpaperu]

Meritocratic hubris stiffles tolerance and solidarity, both of which are needed in a healthy society.

[@paulwarren796]

IT'S TERRIFYING HOW SO MANY OF THE PEOPLE FEEL THE EDUCATED SHOULD NOT HAVE MORE OF A VOTE THAN OTHERS. IT SAYS A LOT TO WHAT A MESS THE COUNTRY IS IN-HOW COME WE HAVE HAD SUCH "LEADERS" THE PAST 2 PRESICENCTS.

[@samm8654]

in India there are lot of people with merit😂😂😂😂 and all time they are shouting merit 24x7😂😂😂

[@rosiewang5066]

这种批判似乎也受用于今天中国某些流量明星，比如走后门考编却觉得自己应得的yyqx

[@Andy-dp3hg]

Harvard famous philosopher Micheal Sandel in Geneva, Switzerland ( The first neutral country of the World and the safest nation for worldwide leaders meeting tending to Peace Talks) with Democracy Conference

[@gicinemwangi9210]

The teacher salary , surely is wanting

[@tami3411]

I've watched Sandal's Justice series, as well as a couple of his global speaking engagements. He makes some good points on the rise of populism, but greatly misses the mark on both the causes and with his proposed solutions. He's out of touch with grievances coming from populists, and labeling them as racists only reflects the academic shortsightedness.

[@naveenadduri5091]

Hi hello ma'am today

[@northernsupernova1]

Stupid when implemented. Rank 1 tennis player should get paid as much as Connor Farren (rank 1000)... hey they do they same job, they work just as hard. Federer is only luckier

[@edwinamendelssohn5129]

The common good: communism

[@rosiewang5066]

我朋友圈的公子哥就是如此傲慢，整天冷嘲热讽，别人没有你这样的条件，你却觉得是他们自己不够努力，人不能忘本啊

[@darmaw22]

A crowd of "intellectual elite" trashing meritocracy? What is the alternative to meritocracy, again?

[@candorsspot2775]

Dictatorship. That's what these people want

[@DanA-pm2hl]

Nobody is trashing meritocracy. The argument is simply that competence (i.e. the ability to do something) is more equitable in some situations than meritocracy (i.e. the best at doing something). I promise you, a purely meritocratic world would be intractable for you and most people. The argument against meritocracy is that good is good enough for most things.

[@MB-dp1rj]

@@DanA-pm2hl Good is not "good enough" when one undergoes a complex surgical procedure or when determining who should fly a plane, etc. Good doesn't "cut it".

[@yeah2011bb]

The alternative is a society where the illusion that those “blessed” with the ability to be successful in our society mortally deserve their success is abandoned… replaced with a more balanced understanding that much of their success is due to luck (and not of their own doing) hence the fruit of this success could be used for the common good as democratically determined by the society.