Book Review: Michael Sandel’s Vain Quest for the Common Good
17th October 2021
In The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?, which was published to national and international acclaim last year and issued this year in paperback with a new prologue, the distinguished Harvard professor argues that the antagonism in America between equality, community, the common good, and justice, on the one side, and freedom on the other has reached catastrophic proportions. Amid the bitter divide in the United States between progressive elites and conservative-leaning middle-class and working-class voters, Sandel elaborates the sensational claim that it is meritocracy—the view, central to the modern tradition of freedom, that a “just society” provides all individuals “an equal chance to rise as far as their talent and hard work will take them”—that is tearing the United States apart. It turns out, however, that Sandel is not opposed to the rule of every form of merit. The thrust of his argument indicates that he wishes to replace the allegedly despotic rule of technocrats, economists, and financiers with the ostensibly refined and compassionate rule of experts in moral reasoning capable of leading national conversations about a common good in America that, in his telling, has been and remains elusive.