A stimulating examination of a divisive social and political problem.
How pernicious assumptions about merit undermine democracy.
Harvard professor of political philosophy and host of BBC Radio’s “The Global Philosopher,” Sandel offers a cogent, penetrating critique of meritocracy, which, he argues persuasively, has trammeled our sense of community and mutual respect. Central to the meritocratic ethic, he writes, is “freedom—the ability to control my destiny by dint of hard work—and deservingness. If I am responsible for having accrued a handsome share of worldly goods—income and wealth, power and prestige—I must deserve them. Success is a sign of virtue. My affluence is my due.” However, the author asserts that many factors beyond one’s control—family status, quality of education, what skills or talents the market values—shape one’s access to wealth and prestige. “Even a fair meritocracy,” he adds, “one without cheating or bribery or special privileges for the wealthy, induces a mistaken impression—that we have made it on our own.” Sandel deplores the rhetoric—touted by politicians on the left and right—that “valorizes credentialism” by calling for workers to improve their lives by getting a college degree. Such rhetoric, he insists repeatedly, erodes the dignity of work, “undermines social recognition and esteem for those who lack the credentials the system rewards,” and leads to unfounded prejudice against those less educated. Loss of social esteem, he maintains, afflicts many aggrieved workers in contemporary America. Sandel’s proposals to undermine the tyranny of meritocracy include a lottery system for admission to highly selective colleges, after a diverse and qualified pool is established; and a commitment to creating spaces and places where “citizens from different walks of life encounter one another.” The idea of a competitive meritocracy, he writes, “is a hollow political project that reflects an impoverished conception of citizenship and freedom.” Sandel’s proposals for change are less convincing than his deeply considered analysis.
A stimulating examination of a divisive social and political problem.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-28998-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
An unflinching self-portrait.
The tumultuous life of a bisexual, autistic comic.
In her debut memoir, Scottish comedian Brady recounts the emotional turmoil of living with undiagnosed autism. “The public perception of autistics is so heavily based on the stereotype of men who love trains or science,” she writes, “that many women miss out on diagnosis and are thought of as studious instead.” She was nothing if not studious, obsessively focused on foreign languages, but she found it difficult to converse in her own language. From novels, she tried to gain “knowledge about people, about how they spoke to each other, learning turns of phrase and metaphor” that others found so familiar. Often frustrated and overwhelmed by sensory overload, she erupted in violent meltdowns. Her parents, dealing with behavior they didn’t understand—including self-cutting—sent her to “a high-security mental hospital” as a day patient. Even there, a diagnosis eluded her; she was not accurately diagnosed until she was 34. Although intimate friendships were difficult, she depicts her uninhibited sexuality and sometimes raucous affairs with both men and women. “I grew up confident about my queerness,” she writes, partly because of “autism’s lack of regard for social norms.” While at the University of Edinburgh, she supported herself as a stripper. “I liked that in a strip club men’s contempt of you was out in the open,” she admits. “In the outside world, misogyny was always hovering in your peripheral vision.” When she worked as a reporter for the university newspaper, she was assigned to try a stint as a stand-up comic and write about it; she found it was work she loved. After “about a thousand gigs in grim little pubs across England,” she landed an agent and embarked on a successful career. Although Brady hopes her memoir will “make things feel better for the next autistic or misfit girl,” her anger is as evident as her compassion.
An unflinching self-portrait.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593582503
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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