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ILLUSTRATION BY BENOIT TARDIF
In 1958, a British sociologist named Michael Young, in a book called
The Rise of the Meritocracy, portrayed a dystopia. He imagined a society in which the old class system of Britain had been swept aside; instead of inherited wealth or family connections, it was exceptional ability that propelled individuals into the elite. This new system, designed to reward the most talented, was just as rigidly hierarchical as the old one, in Young’s depiction. And in important ways, it was worse: In the past, at least, those born into a high rank could not reasonably convince themselves that they had earned their position in the social hierarchy; likewise, people in the lower classes would be aware that they were not inferior in ability to many of those who ranked above them. By contrast, in this new system of meritocracy, individuals who reached the top positions would feel superior to those who fell short, while those at the bottom would inevitably be classifi
Michael Sandel
We have some say in how our lives go, and yet our lives are also subjected to forces outside our control. Which part of this story do we emphasize? Conservatives tend to see the glass as half full, stressing both agential control over outcomes and personal responsibility for them. Progressives are more likely to highlight the causal role of outside factors even when those factors are in some sense “internal,” such as one’s genetic makeup and to caution us to err on the side of withholding blame for poor outcomes.
People rarely, if ever, deserve to fail, but people typically deserve their successes.