The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?

These notes are old and were written while reading — they don’t necessarily reflect my current views.

Everything is Externalities

Sandler raises the question if a meritocratic society is something we should be striving for. He makes the argument the political debate ever since the Thatcher-Ragan-ara has been on how to achieve equality of opportunity instead of if that is actually the write goal.

He makes an interesting point about meritocracy in christianity. He points out that this belive presupposes free will, which is already difficult in some christian traditions (Thomas Aquinus). While the catholic church preached free will, Luther pointed out that this is difficult to reconcile with god being all-powerful. Protestants believe that it is predetermined who goes to heaven. The protestant work ethic (Weber) came about by the believe that being successful was a sign of being blessed and therefore more likely to be saved by god. This incentivised hard work in order to appear successful which reassures the protestants of being blessed.

Sandler further elaborates that a meritocracy brings about some externalities. The people who don’t succeed for the first time in a more and more meritocratic society know that its their own fault. In an Aristocracy they knew that it was only bad fortune that held them back, now they have to believe its their own character.

He goes on to argue that it is just as fair to distribute wealth by birth than by merit, because its equally not ones own decision how gifted or how fortunate one is. He argues that effort is much overstated as a factor in success. He points out that both Hayek and Rawls reject that there should be a connection between merit and pay. Hayek believes that pay should be the economic value, while Rawls does his distributive scheme.

Durkheim’s dignity of work is a positive externality.